Fairfax County General :
Fairfax Underground
Welcome to Fairfax Underground, a project site designed to improve communication among residents of Fairfax County, VA. Feel free to post anything Northern Virginia residents would find interesting.

>There were no reenactments going on that day, and we didn't see her there.

I go to the battlefield pretty often and it's not unusual to see folks there in period dress - they work there. More than once I've ended up taking a leak next to soldiers in full dress, and not on reenactment days. They're usually in the vicinity of the visitor's center and the buildings nearby. Consider the possibility that it's just staff and you just don't remember seeing her.

>told us that he saw what looked like Civil War soldiers crossing over Rt.
> 29 very late at night (about 1am I think).

I've heard stories like this second hand a couple of times, especially from the area around the stone bridge - not sure what to make of them. It's possible that human suffering 'leaves an imprint' of some sort (oh so goes the theory) but I'd expect other places to absolutely glow with ghosts. I'm been to Dachau and Passchendaele, and as far as I know, neither is famous for ghosts. This even though you can fairly well feel the horror radiating from these places.

Ghost on the Battlefield Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Manassas Battlefield Ghosts Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > We go up the Manassas Battlefield sometimes and
> > sometimes we hear the sounds of cannons and
> > muskets on the hills and trees. Some people
> tell
> > us that all we're hearing are the sounds from
> 66,
> > however I can tell the difference. Plus we live
> > nearby (even closer to 66 and 29, and they
> aren't
> > the same sounds).
> >
> > Some years ago, my brother - who was a
> sheriff's
> > deputy at the time, told us that he saw what
> > looked like Civil War soldiers crossing over
> Rt.
> > 29 very late at night (about 1am I think).
> Scary
> > place to be!
>
> My family and I were on vacation in DC and we went
> to the Manassas battlefield. We video taped there,
> and later that day we were watching the tape and
> we noticed the woman dressed in white walking
> along the fenceline. There were no reenactments
> going on that day, and we didn't see her there. If
> you look to the left of the house, you will see a
> small black fence with a marker that encloses the
> graves of Mrs. Henry, her daughter, and her son.
> The ghost is walking away from the graves to just
> an open field. We are convinced that this was a
> paranormal experience.
>
> You can watch the video here:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detail
> page&v=G27tgEiUE2o

I work there for the NPS, and one of my buddies there and I have heard some strange shit before sunrise inside the visitor center, which of course in stellar 1940s thinking was built on the exact scene of some brutal combat. Amongst other things sometimes the water faucets in the bathrooms turn themselves on, the lights will turn on and off. I just tell them to knock it off please because i have work to do, and strangely, it stops. I've also had some weird chills and sensations over near the Deep Cut section of the second manassas battlefield, another scene of brutal fighting with lots of hand to hand and artillery. I spoke to an old timer who used to live on a nearby farm back in the day and he spoke of seeing "haints" in the woods, where there yet remain unmarked graves, though most were found by the UDC and local farmers after the war. Some folks get offended when I remind them not to play sports games on the fields, I let them know the place is more of a cemetery then anything else. A 5300 acre battleground of lost soldiers and with the parts of unaccounted for.

abelard Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >told us that he saw what looked like Civil War
> soldiers crossing over Rt.
> > 29 very late at night (about 1am I think).
>
> I've heard stories like this second hand a couple
> of times, especially from the area around the
> stone bridge - not sure what to make of them.
> It's possible that human suffering 'leaves an
> imprint' of some sort (oh so goes the theory) but
> I'd expect other places to absolutely glow with
> ghosts. I'm been to Dachau and Passchendaele, and
> as far as I know, neither is famous for ghosts.
> This even though you can fairly well feel the
> horror radiating from these places.

When we were there last, I got the feeling that I was just on the "other side of the looking glass". That those gunshots we heard were just down the hill. We were on New York road over there where the Union's New York division was wiped out. In the picture with one of the two cannons on the hill, you can see a small road in the background. Just go down that road and you'll come to a creepy parking lot/turnaround where there are (2) Memorials for the New York units there. That's where we heard the shots being fired some weeks ago and the occassional cannon. You can also hear the traffic on 66 as well. There's alot of echo there because the unusal treelines and the terrain. Curiously, we did not hear anything on the hill that day.
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I live in Manassas, VA right down the street from the Manassas Battlefield. I LOVE taking my dog out there for walks and ever since I moved to Virginia I've been intrigued with one house in particular on the battlefield. The old Mathew's Stone house is so mysterious. You can find some information about the place online, but in comparison to other records of history; the history of this house is not as well advertised all over the internet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Quote:
"The Civil War brought devastation to the cluster of families living near the Stone House intersection. Most families suffered, with their crops destroyed, fences burned, or houses damaged. The Matthews at the Stone House found themselves in the thick of the fighting during the first battle. The battle began a third of a mile north of the Stone House where a brigade of Southerners, hurrying from Stone Bridge, met Union attackers advancing south on the Sudley-Manassas Road. From the shelter of the Stone House, retreating Southerners fired on the advancing Yankees until the 27th New York Infantry drove them from this cover, across the Warrenton Turnpike, and up Henry Hill. Wounded from the fighting sought shelter in the basement of the Stone House. Corporal William H. Merrell of the 27th New York Infantry joined them and observed, “the floor above was also covered with wounded soldiers, whose cries could be distinctly heard.” A makeshift red flag appeared on the building to mark the Stone House as a place of refuge and suffering. After the fighting ended, company A of the 28th Virginia Infantry arrived at the Stone House to find 100 weapons and “a large number of the wounded enemy, some dead, and thirty-six men, who surrendered themselves prisoners.” Among the prisoners were two Union medical officers, a surgeon and an assistant surgeon. Only the assistant surgeon was allowed to remain and care for the many sufferers as best he could. No evidence exists that any surgical operations took place inside the house. Two primary battlefield hospital sites were located nearby at Sudley Church and the Francis Lewis House, “Portici.”

During the Second Battle of Manassas, Union commander John Pope established his head-quarters on Buck Hill overlooking the Stone House. On August 30 most of the defeated Union army passed the Stone House on the Warrenton Turnpike in retreat toward Washington. Private George Edgcomb of the 23rd New York wrote that he entered the Stone House at this time to rescue a wounded comrade. The weight of the man proved too great a burden for Edgcomb to carry and he had to abandon the soldier along the road near Stone Bridge. At least two other wounded soldiers also occupied the Stone House that day. Privates Eugene P Geer and Charles E. Brehm of the 5th New York Infantry were wounded on August 30, 1862 in a futile attempt to halt General James Longstreet’s counterattack. Somehow the two men found their way to one small upstairs rooms at the Stone House. There, carved in the floorboards in the late summer of 1862, and still visible today, are the initials “E.P. Ge” and “Brehm Aug 30.” Charles Brehm recovered from his wounds and survived the war. Eugene Geer died of his wounds September 30, 1862, he was 17."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm really interested in history so this place just absolutely intrigues me... but there's more to it. My friend Devon and I were driving down the road one day. I looked up and saw a face in the top right window that faced out towards the street. The face was staring out the window right at me. I couldn't define the face as a man or woman. I got Devon's attention and told her to look at the house and tell me what she saw. She freaked out and said, "OMG there's a face... in that top right window." We wrote it off as possibly being someone who broke into the house to play a prank or possibly a homeless person.

I found out a few days later that a friend of ours had also seen something at the Stone House. When I spoke with him he said that a few weeks prior he had seen a face in a window. When I asked him what window he said that if you're looking at the house from the street it would be the top right window. Ok... a little creepy now, but still can be explained right?

The other night my friends and I had a bonfire at my friend Shanna's farm. We all got to talking about spooky happenings and this guy and his girlfriend that had showed up brought up the stone house. They said that occassionally when they pass by the stone house they'll see a face in the top right window. Sometimes it's clear like you'd see any person, but sometimes it's less visible and more of a cloudy appearance fogging the window in the shape of a face.

Ok... so now we have my interest really getting at me. I decided I want to research this place and find out what may be. It could be coincidence... it could be easily explained... but I'm all too curious. I love the battlefields. They're filled with so many stories and I have a deep respect for the soldiers that died on those fields. There have been lots of stories about ghosts inhabiting the fields and soldiers seen marching along the cobblestone bridge out here. There's been stories about the cannonfire which could honestly be mistaken by the gun fire that takes place over at Bull Run Park... still... when you hear the gun fire in the middle of the night that's a bit odd.

My friend Devon decided to look into this with me. I think it'll be a lot of fun. I feel like a kid again... off on my explorations... my adventures...

Here's my thought maybe.... Eugene Geer died of his wounds. I don't think he ever left the Stone House. He was too hurt. He may have died in that room where he carved his innitals. Could it be that maybe that room is the same room that looks out of that top right window? Could it be that he looked out the window from time to time longing for the help that never came? Who knows...

Like I said... I feel like a kid off on an adventure

Here's a picture of the stone house. It's the top right window I believe that you see in the picture that people tend to see the face in. There's a chimney on one side and can't remember what side it's on. I believe this is the side that faces the street that is now RT 29.
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I used to live in Germany in a town called Wildflecken. We lived in an attic apartment. You'd go to bed at night with everything in the house as it should be and find everything in a chaos the next morning. For example, shoes would be moved elsewhere and stuff would be broken. Cabinets and drawers in the kitchen would be wide open when you made sure before going to bed that they were closed. We had no animals at the time and had no way to explain why all the drawers and cabinets would be wide open in the mornings.

My mom kept telling my dad that she thought we seriously had a ghost in the house. Now mind you, my dad is the biggest skeptic I know. He's a "I wont believe that crap till I see it" kind of guy. He told my mom she was full of it and that there's no such thing as ghosts.

My mom grabbed me and took me to the nearest church that was open at the time. She prayed for a while thinking that was how she would get rid of whatever was in the house. When she was walking home she turned the corner into an alley shortcut back to the apartment. Right as she turned that corner an older lady had her head out the window and said to my mom something in German which translated into, "My child, No Evil." Strange, but eh ok.

Anyways... back to my Dad, the skeptic. He seriously though my mom had gone crazy. One night he woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. The lights are located on the outsides of the rooms instead of inside. Not sure if most places in Germany or like that or just the area we lived in at the time. Anyways, he was in the bathroom doing his thing and all of a sudden the light turned off and the door slammed shut. His first thought was that my mom was being annoying and playing a stupid prank on him. He finished up and when he opened up the door there was an old woman. She turned her face to him and then vanished. He ran to his room and hid under the covers and we moved out I think within the week.

Here's one more. I was at my Great-Uncle's memorial (funeral) that took place in a small church in the middle of a cemetary. When the memorial was over and we were walking out to our cars I saw a small boy that looked about 5ish playing in the cemetary. I looked around and didn't see any adults nearby. I didn't recognize him from the memorial. He looked at me, smiled and started to play peekaboo with me from behind a nearby tree. I seriously thought it was a real living kid honestly. He went and hid behind the tree again and when he didn't pop back out from behind the tree for peekaboo again I decided to investigate. It was a very short walk to the tree. I would have seen him if he had decided to leave. I got to the tree and there was no kid. It was the strangest thing I had ever witnessed. No real kid could have just vanished into thin air like that. You can't just lose a kid behind a tree. He would have had to make himself visible if he left to go anywhere... strange.

I was living in a townhouse in Chantilly and was always hearing strange noises. I kept telling my parents I thought there was a ghost in the house. They told me I was just freaking out too much and chill out. I woke started waking up and finding scratches on me. Every morning there were more. They weren't so bad at first, but then occasionally they would be bad enough that it drew blood. My step-mom started making sure my nails were always trimmed since they thought maybe I was just scratching myself in the middle of the night. That didn't stop them though. I continued to have scratches on me and started hearing voices talking to me at night. I was so scared of that particular place and was happy when we moved out.

Another encountered when I was at a friend's house. Her house was FREAKY. The tv volume would go up and down on it's own. The channels would change on their own. etc. I spent the night one night and decided I was going to hop into the shower. You know how the mirrors sometimes fog up? Well that happened. I got out of the shower and had the towel wrapped around me. I went to rub my hands on the mirror to wipe the fog away so I could see myself. Just then I saw a male figure walk by behind me as I was looking in the mirror. I turned around and there was no one there. Creepy?

This all started in May of 2009. My dad brought me to Washington DC, for the police memorial. I was studying the Civil War in history class and so before we left, we went to Manassas Battlefield (site of the famous battles of Bull Run). Anyone who has been there knows that there is a well-known field house there called the Stone House. Anyway, people aren't allowed into the field house, but you can look in the windows. So that is exactly what I did. When I looked into the window, I saw a man in all gray, pacing. I quickly stepped away from the window and walked back to my dad's car. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary for a while after that.

When I went to a summer camp in late June, I kept having weird dreams about the field house. On the last night I had a dream that I was back at the field house... but this time I was in the field house. I figured that it was directly after the first or second battle of Bull Run. There were Confederate soldiers with blood on them, some were missing limbs. No one paid attention to me, except for one soldier. He had brown eyes and light brown shaggy hair, he also had bloody a scar going across his face. He looked at me and said, "This is only the beginning." I assumed he was from Tennessee from his accent, he grabbed my shoulders and ran through me. I woke up in a cold sweat back at the summer camp. I sat up and read the clock, it said 3 am and everyone was asleep. I laid back down and let out a sigh, It was only a dream I thought. I looked around one more time to see if I had woken anyone up, and the same Confederate soldier that talked to me in my dream was standing next to my bed, looking at me! Before I could scream he put his hand over my mouth. I could smell the gun powder, and he shushed me and told me, "I won't hurt you." I blacked out after that. I didn't eat much that morning... everything smelled like gunpowder.

Not that long after I came home from the summer camp I had another dream. The Confederate soldier kept saying he wouldn't hurt me. He also confirmed that he was from Tennessee. In late July, my parents, two sisters, and I drove down to Florida. We were at a gas station in Tennessee early in the morning, I was walking around the perimeter of the gas station while everyone else was inside going to the bathroom. I was behind the gas station when I felt a rough hand grab my shoulder. I balled up my fist and spun around, trying to punch whoever grabbed my shoulder, but my hand went through air. The same Confederate soldier was smiling and laughing at my reaction. "What do you want?" I hissed at him. He laughed some more, and I couldn't help but smile for a second. He stopped laughing and said, "I want to welcome you to my home... and give you this." He handed me my phone charger, which, I realized, I had left still plugged into my wall, "Thank you." I said, and he laughed some more. My mom started calling my name, and he disappeared. Throughout my entire week in Florida, the soldier would show up and tell me stuff about the Civil War. When my dad, my friend (she and her family had joined us on the trip), and I went into the war museum, we stopped by the Civil War section. I felt a rough hand on my back and I could see a faint outline of the soldier pointing at some pictures and other artifacts from the Confederate army. He was talking, but I couldn't hear him. Finally he pointed to a Confederate uniform and I could lip-read what he said, "That was mine." I almost fainted. After I finally got my SD card back from the Walgreen's where I got my pictures from Washington DC, developed, I went through the pictures on my computer and came across a picture of the Stone House. It looked like a normal picture, except if you look by the fence in the bottom-right, there is a picture of a man crouching and maybe holding a riffle.
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First time I had visited Manassas. That was sixteen years ago. My relatives there took me to the Manassas national battlefield park. As I walked over the actual terrain of the battlefield, I felt something under my shoes that held me to step over the ground lightly. I realize that it was that of the fallen who tried to send their message to the living who crossed it. I looked around, nothing but solemn silence.

Hello, Well my husband and I drove to the Manassas Battlefield to check it out last week. I took a bunch of photos because it was impressive, and for the hope to maybe catch something on film. I came home, looked at the pictures and at first glance nothing caught my eye. But this evening upon looking for the third time I saw something. We looked inside the Henry house that still stands there. It was locked so we just looked in the windows and took pictures from the outside. Look at the bottom two windows carefully. On the left, the lower middle pane you can see the faint image of a face, two eyes and nose defined. On the right, second pane from the bottom left you can see a face also. It almost appears to be a female face smiling.

AND COULD THIS BE A REAL GHOSTS FACE PEERING OUT ALSO? THIRD WINDOW PANE DOWN ABOVE THE BOYS HEAD? MANY OF OUR VISITORS THINK SO!

According to http://womenshistory.about.com/library/pic/bl_p_judith_henry_house.htm: "Judith Carter Henry, 84 or 85 years old and bedridden, refused to leave her upstairs bedroom as the First Battle of Bull Run was fought on the hill surrounding her home. Snipers used the house; Judith Henry was killed by a bullet meant for the snipers. She was the first civilian killed at First Bull Run, July 21, 1861." And according to further reading there was also a Union soldier killed inside the house.
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again debbie does dallas fan Wrote:
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> a zombie in tatters was sighted by many early in
> the morning before sunrise, carrying a bag of
> justice denied
>
> limping down a road many mc mansions were popping
> up
>
> on the passing of thanksgiving day, 2013

There are stories of a ghost, maybe female, at the Stone House, though I haven't seen it while at work there for the last few years. I did get a really weird vibe down in the basement, which was packed with wounded and dying soldiers of both battles. Out its closed to the public, sorry. Longstreet's wing decimated the Yankees there by New York ave, above Youngs branch, sad. Them yanks really fought but got smashed by numbers. They were shot down en mass in three stream valley as they tried to run back to the Chinn farm and shelter. Be aware that there are shooting ranges within ear shot of the battlefield.

CSA 11B Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There are stories of a ghost, maybe female, at the
> Stone House, though I haven't seen it while at
> work there for the last few years. I did get a
> really weird vibe down in the basement, which was
> packed with wounded and dying soldiers of both
> battles. Out its closed to the public, sorry.
> Longstreet's wing decimated the Yankees there by
> New York ave, above Youngs branch, sad. Them yanks
> really fought but got smashed by numbers. They
> were shot down en mass in three stream valley as
> they tried to run back to the Chinn farm and
> shelter. Be aware that there are shooting ranges
> within ear shot of the battlefield.

Yep, that's right where we heard the sounds. The shooting sounds were different that modern gun shots (I own and fire several different types of handguns and rifles). The weird thing is, they sound like they are in front of you facing in the direction of 66 but are only about 100 feet.

???? Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> CSA 11B Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Be aware that there are shooting ranges
> > within ear shot of the battlefield.
>
> Where is there a shooting range near the
> battlefield?

Could they be hearing the shotgun ranges at Bull Run? He did say "within ear shot". I live near Fair Lakes and can here them most Saturdays when the weather is good. I would guess it is about the same distance as the battlefield is from Bull Run.

Yup, that's it. I forget which club is also near enough to hear sometimes too. We sometimes hear charges set off at the quarry. Also, if you are there during the warm months, you could be hearing the infantry display our interpretive rangers do up on Henry Hill...our it could be the ghosts of some poor yank that got smoked up on that ridge. There was fiercer fighting in Groveton village too, with Confederate soldiers shooting yanks from the houses. The yanks were firing artillery towards Groveton from the middle of the road near where the Confederate cemetery is today, there was a very broad firefight along Groveton road and the ridge top, lots of casualties besides the NY boys...

In the war between the states, the North and South met up twice in what is known as the battles of Bull Run. June 1861 and again in August 1862. Around 24,000 men died in those two conflicts. I think some of them still think it's still going on.

In April 1964 me and two of my friends went camping up on a wooded area of the park. My oldest sister owned a house not more then a 1/2 mile from the park. It was Easter break from school and we had four days of camping and hiking to do. She picked us up and took us back to her house. We told her about where we were headed and off we went. We went about a mile or so and found the spot we wanted for the night. It was up on a small rolling hill and had a wonderful view of the area.

We set up the tent and got the campfire going. After we cooked our food it started to rain so in the tent we headed. As a bunch of 12 year old boys would do we started talking about the girls at school and what ever else 12 year olds talked about. Not once did the subject of ghost come up. We all started to dose off when we heard what sounded like Jug band music. By this I mean someone blowing on a jug and playing a harmonica. I had never heard the tune they were playing but it was foot tapping. You could hear men talking and clapping along with the music.
We at first thought some other group of people had camped close to us. We got out of the tent and could see a campfire down the hill from us about 100 or so feet. There seem to be about 10 or more people that we could see around the campfire. They were glowing blue in color. That might have been from the flames of the fire. You could see what looked like rifles, some had crossed in their arms. As we were looking down the hill everything went dark. There was no campfire or music or people in blue.
I think we all felt fear at the same time. We started running as fast and hard as we could. We took nothing with us. We ran the wrong way hitting trees and each other and when we did get back to my sisters house we all were shaking in her hallway next to her bedroom.

After the sun came up we went to get our stuff. We decided to go down the hill to see about the campfire and people we had seen just hours before. The underbrush was too much to have had a camp there and we could not find any traces of a campfire.

We stayed at my sisters house the rest of the time, and went hiking only. No more camping for that trip.

I had never been so frightened in my life, but could not have asked for a better camping trip. What an adventure that was.

I have not seen my friends in twenty or more years as we all went different ways and I no longer live in Virginia but the last time I saw one of them was around 1986, the camping trip was brought up and relived once again.

I still wonder if they were Northern or Southern troops and if they were reliving a happy night before their last battle.

Whatever it was, it sure got me thinking about ghosts and wanting to find out more.

My life is that of a Buddhist nun, sometimes called an ani. I live near the Manassas Battlefields in Virginia, and I've frequently gone there to pray for the lives that were lost so tragically. The battlefields cover many miles, and some of the bloodiest battles of the US Civil War were fought in that area. Many Buddhists believe that praying for the dead can help them, especially if they died in confusion or misery. I wanted to help anyone trapped there if I could.

A couple of years ago I went to the battlefields as usual and did my prayers. This time I chose a new site, the location of a mass grave of unknown Union and Confederate soldiers. I thought how horrible it was that these young people died and were buried, without their families ever knowing conclusively what happened.

When I returned home that day, my television set turned itself on and off, twice. It has never done that before, or since. I prayed again, and asked forgiveness from any spirit I may have brought home with me.

I haven't been back there since. I've always heard that the intent of the prayers is what matters, not the faith. But I think maybe I offended a spirit out there, because when my tv turned itself on and off, I felt my hair stand on end and an awful feeling in my stomach.

When my husband and I purchased a house on Washington Avenue in Front Royal our plan was to fix it up and rent it. My two girls were little at the time and both refused to go in this house. It scared them. I was in there one day cleaning upstairs and had a tremendous sense of someone wanting to push me down the steep stairs. I turned around and said aloud don't even think about it. I found out later a man had hanged himself upstairs in the attic.

UyPmn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In the war between the states, the North and South
> met up twice in what is known as the battles of
> Bull Run. June 1861 and again in August 1862.
> Around 24,000 men died in those two conflicts. I
> think some of them still think it's still going
> on.
>
> In April 1964 me and two of my friends went
> camping up on a wooded area of the park. My oldest
> sister owned a house not more then a 1/2 mile from
> the park. It was Easter break from school and we
> had four days of camping and hiking to do. She
> picked us up and took us back to her house. We
> told her about where we were headed and off we
> went. We went about a mile or so and found the
> spot we wanted for the night. It was up on a small
> rolling hill and had a wonderful view of the area.
>
>
> We set up the tent and got the campfire going.
> After we cooked our food it started to rain so in
> the tent we headed. As a bunch of 12 year old boys
> would do we started talking about the girls at
> school and what ever else 12 year olds talked
> about. Not once did the subject of ghost come up.
> We all started to dose off when we heard what
> sounded like Jug band music. By this I mean
> someone blowing on a jug and playing a harmonica.
> I had never heard the tune they were playing but
> it was foot tapping. You could hear men talking
> and clapping along with the music.
> We at first thought some other group of people had
> camped close to us. We got out of the tent and
> could see a campfire down the hill from us about
> 100 or so feet. There seem to be about 10 or more
> people that we could see around the campfire. They
> were glowing blue in color. That might have been
> from the flames of the fire. You could see what
> looked like rifles, some had crossed in their
> arms. As we were looking down the hill everything
> went dark. There was no campfire or music or
> people in blue.
> I think we all felt fear at the same time. We
> started running as fast and hard as we could. We
> took nothing with us. We ran the wrong way hitting
> trees and each other and when we did get back to
> my sisters house we all were shaking in her
> hallway next to her bedroom.
>
> After the sun came up we went to get our stuff. We
> decided to go down the hill to see about the
> campfire and people we had seen just hours before.
> The underbrush was too much to have had a camp
> there and we could not find any traces of a
> campfire.
>
> We stayed at my sisters house the rest of the
> time, and went hiking only. No more camping for
> that trip.
>
> I had never been so frightened in my life, but
> could not have asked for a better camping trip.
> What an adventure that was.
>
> I have not seen my friends in twenty or more years
> as we all went different ways and I no longer live
> in Virginia but the last time I saw one of them
> was around 1986, the camping trip was brought up
> and relived once again.
>
> I still wonder if they were Northern or Southern
> troops and if they were reliving a happy night
> before their last battle.
>
> Whatever it was, it sure got me thinking about
> ghosts and wanting to find out more.

Well one night my uncle, a friend, and I went riding. We went down the old Civil War battlefield.
We parked down by the trail to the bridge and cut the truck off. The electric mirrors started turning,
no one was touching the switch. Then when they stopped we saw two red eyes in the woods. We got out and
nothing. Ran off and there was nothing there but there was a cross hanging in a tree.

We started to walk down the trail. You could hear people talking and people walking . Then we could
see a shadow walking on the bridge; we turned around to go home and we all could feel someone pushing
us. When we got in the truck we could see yellow light moving around in the woods then just went out
so we left.

Olde Town Inn Hotel- they say there is a ghost named Miss Lucy who haunts rooms # 50 to 54. It is said that she sometimes holds people a few inches in the air over their bed, moves things in the room, turns on water faucets or turns off lights. They say s

Posted by:
Olde Town Inn Hotel
()

Date: February 18, 2014 09:13AM

At the Olde Town Inn Hotel in manassas they say there is a ghost named Miss Lucy who haunts rooms # 50 to 54. It is said that she sometimes holds people a few inches in the air over their bed, moves things in the room, turns on water faucets or turns off lights. They say she loves to play pranks on whomever sleeps in one of those rooms. Before the place had its reputation for being haunted my kids and i stayed in room 54 ..the only thing that happened to us was the lights kept going off and on periodically, and the kids ( they were all under 5 at the time).. would say they saw someone briefly and then the 'someone ' disappeared...also you got this strange feeling that you were being watched.)

Whether that was Miss Lucy or not i have no clue....but it was kinda cool staying there...lol.

During the Civil war Robert E. Lee ordered the construction of a railroad that he could use more efficiently to transport supplies to Bull Run for his army. The workers were massacred and the railroad was never finished. They say that people have heard strange noises including banshee yells, and sometimes just murmurs. Voices have been heard in the woods bordering the paths, too.

So I work in a nursing home, and due to HIPAA regulations, I will not include names or my location. We have a "ghost" man that is seen during periods of death. What I mean by periods of death is usually we have residents die in sets of 3, 6, 9, and occasionally 12. It's unfortunate and scary, but when our resident "angel of death" that we refer to as "the man in the brown suit" is seen, I can't help but get an extremely uneasy feeling.

Sometimes he is seen by the person whom passes, but usually he is seen by persons whom do not. He is always described as a male, with white hair, wearing a brown suit, hat, and tie. The residents that see him are very frightened.

Normally, he simply passes by their room and looks at them. Occasionally, it has been reported he comes out of the closet, or through the wall, or simply been sitting in a chair in their room. Once, he asked a resident what the time was. Another time a blind woman described him in detail. I would not have believed it, had I not already heard the stories.

He is seen during all hours of the day, but more often at night; however, every time he is reported as being seen, someone passes away. Nurses and CNA's have seen him as well, like walk into a room, but then he is gone when they investigate. I personally have seen a shadow in the corner of my eye, but it disappears when I turn to look. For that I am thankful because I do not want to see him... I would probably quit.

I just wonder who he is and what he wants? It's creepy. Could he really be taking people to the other side? I'm not sure if it is him or not, but sometimes call lights will go off by themselves and once a bed started raising while I was changing a resident without me pushing the button. Perhaps it is more than one ghost.

This just happened last week, although we've suspected we have some spirits around for the past few years. A few nights back, I was rocking our baby before bed. All of a sudden I heard the baby's name repeated three times in a whisper. I thought perhaps it was my husband talking over the monitor, but when I walked out, he was on the main level of the house and our monitor was in our bedroom. I hadn't mentioned anything to him and ran upstairs to grab the monitor. When I came back down, I told him I thought he'd had the monitor this whole time. About 15 minutes later, he took a peek in the monitor and saw something in the crib with our baby. The baby was holding some solid item. He went upstairs and there was a toothbrush in her hand! We weren't exactly worried, because it wasn't like a toothbrush is particularly harmful unlike maybe a blanket or some other strangle-prone object. When he came back downstairs, I told him what I had heard earlier.

Throughout the whole night, the baby would wake up crying. The only thing the baby wanted was out of the crib (very unusual). At one point, I asked my grandma, who passed on 10 years ago, to watch over the baby. At that moment, the baby stopped crying and slept through the night. In the morning, I went upstairs and told whatever it was that it was welcome to stay with us, but it had to leave the baby alone. We haven't had an issue the past few days.

It's not really scary, but it is very weird. I've always felt my grandma's presence with me, so I feel we are all safe and she wouldn't let anyone/anything harm us. But, it's still unsettling.

Ghost man in VA hospital Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So I work in a nursing home, and due to HIPAA
> regulations, I will not include names or my
> location. We have a "ghost" man that is seen
> during periods of death. What I mean by periods of
> death is usually we have residents die in sets of
> 3, 6, 9, and occasionally 12. It's unfortunate and
> scary, but when our resident "angel of death" that
> we refer to as "the man in the brown suit" is
> seen, I can't help but get an extremely uneasy
> feeling.
>
> Sometimes he is seen by the person whom passes,
> but usually he is seen by persons whom do not. He
> is always described as a male, with white hair,
> wearing a brown suit, hat, and tie. The residents
> that see him are very frightened.
>
> Normally, he simply passes by their room and looks
> at them. Occasionally, it has been reported he
> comes out of the closet, or through the wall, or
> simply been sitting in a chair in their room.
> Once, he asked a resident what the time was.
> Another time a blind woman described him in
> detail. I would not have believed it, had I not
> already heard the stories.
>
> He is seen during all hours of the day, but more
> often at night; however, every time he is reported
> as being seen, someone passes away. Nurses and
> CNA's have seen him as well, like walk into a
> room, but then he is gone when they investigate. I
> personally have seen a shadow in the corner of my
> eye, but it disappears when I turn to look. For
> that I am thankful because I do not want to see
> him... I would probably quit.
>
> I just wonder who he is and what he wants? It's
> creepy. Could he really be taking people to the
> other side? I'm not sure if it is him or not, but
> sometimes call lights will go off by themselves
> and once a bed started raising while I was
> changing a resident without me pushing the button.
> Perhaps it is more than one ghost.

I don't know if this is related, but your story sounded a bit familiar to me. And then I recalled both of my older sisters (both retired RNs) had told me similar stories about the hospitals where they had worked. The one (they're twins so it can get confusing) had worked in a VA hospital, and she said many claimed to see a 'visitor' at odd hours, right before someone passed. The other had worked at a Catholic hospital, and there it was an old nun in full habit that would pass through. Could these be angels of death? I don't think anyone knows for certain. But, in a strange way, is not the thought comforting? If someone comes for us, when we pass, then no one ever really dies alone. We tend to think of death as something to be feared and fought against. But what about when the pain and quality of life outweigh what joy a body has? Would death not be welcomed then? And perhaps, they only come for those who are ready to go. Who knows?

CSA11B Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sorry but that story its nothing but a story,
> regarding the unfinished RR, if y'all want I can
> fill ya in on the real story...

Cool story. Wonder if workers at other nursing homes have similar experiences. Are you sure your not trying to find patterns (when you talk about people dying in sets)?

Ghost man in VA hospital Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So I work in a nursing home, and due to HIPAA
> regulations, I will not include names or my
> location. We have a "ghost" man that is seen
> during periods of death. What I mean by periods of
> death is usually we have residents die in sets of
> 3, 6, 9, and occasionally 12. It's unfortunate and
> scary, but when our resident "angel of death" that
> we refer to as "the man in the brown suit" is
> seen, I can't help but get an extremely uneasy
> feeling.
>
> Sometimes he is seen by the person whom passes,
> but usually he is seen by persons whom do not. He
> is always described as a male, with white hair,
> wearing a brown suit, hat, and tie. The residents
> that see him are very frightened.
>
> Normally, he simply passes by their room and looks
> at them. Occasionally, it has been reported he
> comes out of the closet, or through the wall, or
> simply been sitting in a chair in their room.
> Once, he asked a resident what the time was.
> Another time a blind woman described him in
> detail. I would not have believed it, had I not
> already heard the stories.
>
> He is seen during all hours of the day, but more
> often at night; however, every time he is reported
> as being seen, someone passes away. Nurses and
> CNA's have seen him as well, like walk into a
> room, but then he is gone when they investigate. I
> personally have seen a shadow in the corner of my
> eye, but it disappears when I turn to look. For
> that I am thankful because I do not want to see
> him... I would probably quit.
>
> I just wonder who he is and what he wants? It's
> creepy. Could he really be taking people to the
> other side? I'm not sure if it is him or not, but
> sometimes call lights will go off by themselves
> and once a bed started raising while I was
> changing a resident without me pushing the button.
> Perhaps it is more than one ghost.

kev Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Cool story. Wonder if workers at other nursing
> homes have similar experiences. Are you sure your
> not trying to find patterns (when you talk about
> people dying in sets)?
>

Realistically, I think the "death comes in threes" thing might be a matter of perception. (Though, ironically, I argued the other side of this question just a couple of days ago.) In other words, whenever two bad things happen close together we wait for a third. Then, when something does eventually happen, we connect it.

I say this because I was remembering several years ago when three very similar actors died, as I recalled, one right after the other. I went back to check my memory before posting about it. Bob Denver (who played Gilligan) died 10/02/05 and Don Adams (Maxwell Smart) died 10/25/05. Don Knotts (Barney Fife), though, didn't die until five months later on 2/24/06. So is that connected or just a coincidence?

A friend of mine has worked there for eleven years, and heard about him when she started, so I'm not sure. The facility is around thirty-five years old. I don't think the people who see him know a death follows his appearance; they are just frightened. I want to clarify though: residents do not always report his appearance before someone passes away; however, any time he is reported being seen, a death follows very shortly after. (Usually within hours.) Thank you for your questions! I would like to know what is going on!

He said that my great uncle had been sickly, obviously so during services, and had been slowly getting better. The pastor had thought to go over to his house and try to cheer him up a bit as being sick will bring anyone down.

While there, my great uncle asked the pastor to go get them a cup of iced tea each. When the pastor got back to the room with the drinks, my uncle looked right at him and said, "Isn't she pretty?"

When the pastor asked who he was talking about as he could only see my great uncle and himself in the room, my great uncle looked at him and said, "The angel that's come to take me home."

The pastor said right after saying that, my uncle fell out of his chair already deceased.

kev Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Cool story. Wonder if workers at other nursing
> homes have similar experiences. Are you sure your
> not trying to find patterns (when you talk about
> people dying in sets)?
>
>
> Ghost man in VA hospital Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > So I work in a nursing home, and due to HIPAA
> > regulations, I will not include names or my
> > location. We have a "ghost" man that is seen
> > during periods of death. What I mean by periods
> of
> > death is usually we have residents die in sets
> of
> > 3, 6, 9, and occasionally 12. It's unfortunate
> and
> > scary, but when our resident "angel of death"
> that
> > we refer to as "the man in the brown suit" is
> > seen, I can't help but get an extremely uneasy
> > feeling.
> >
> > Sometimes he is seen by the person whom passes,
> > but usually he is seen by persons whom do not.
> He
> > is always described as a male, with white hair,
> > wearing a brown suit, hat, and tie. The
> residents
> > that see him are very frightened.
> >
> > Normally, he simply passes by their room and
> looks
> > at them. Occasionally, it has been reported he
> > comes out of the closet, or through the wall,
> or
> > simply been sitting in a chair in their room.
> > Once, he asked a resident what the time was.
> > Another time a blind woman described him in
> > detail. I would not have believed it, had I not
> > already heard the stories.
> >
> > He is seen during all hours of the day, but
> more
> > often at night; however, every time he is
> reported
> > as being seen, someone passes away. Nurses and
> > CNA's have seen him as well, like walk into a
> > room, but then he is gone when they investigate.
> I
> > personally have seen a shadow in the corner of
> my
> > eye, but it disappears when I turn to look. For
> > that I am thankful because I do not want to see
> > him... I would probably quit.
> >
> > I just wonder who he is and what he wants? It's
> > creepy. Could he really be taking people to the
> > other side? I'm not sure if it is him or not,
> but
> > sometimes call lights will go off by themselves
> > and once a bed started raising while I was
> > changing a resident without me pushing the
> button.
> > Perhaps it is more than one ghost.

It isn't just nursing homes. Death/tragedy always seems to come in sets of three. Some people claim that 3 is a mystic number.

does anyone know? Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> CSA11B Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Sorry but that story its nothing but a story,
> > regarding the unfinished RR, if y'all want I
> can
> > fill ya in on the real story...
>
> Sure, I'd love to hear it. The floor is yours...!

Disclaimer, I don't work in interpretation and more info can be found on the parks site...
The remains of the railroad bed that pass through the battlefield are pat of a track that was being laid through the 1850s by a group of investors who wants a more direct route to get cross to market without having to pay the existing railroads fees. I believe it was to go from Culpepper or somewhere (I forget) to Alexandria's port. But they ran out of money just before the war started, never laying ant track on the bed. There are many cuts and fills as well as culverts and bridge abutments still remaining.

CSA11B Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> does anyone know? Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > CSA11B Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > Sorry but that story its nothing but a story,
> > > regarding the unfinished RR, if y'all want I
> > can
> > > fill ya in on the real story...
> >
> > Sure, I'd love to hear it. The floor is
> yours...!
>
> Disclaimer, I don't work in interpretation and
> more info can be found on the parks site...
> The remains of the railroad bed that pass through
> the battlefield are pat of a track that was being
> laid through the 1850s by a group of investors who
> wants a more direct route to get cross to market
> without having to pay the existing railroads fees.
> I believe it was to go from Culpepper or somewhere
> (I forget) to Alexandria's port. But they ran out
> of money just before the war started, never laying
> ant track on the bed. There are many cuts and
> fills as well as culverts and bridge abutments
> still remaining.

Pt.2
So as far as the unfinished railroad is concerned within the park boundary, General Jackson used its cuts and fills as a ready made fortification when he his his soldiers behind it. He engaged passing Yankee troops at the Brawner farm and the battle lasted three days, with very fierce combat between the armies along the railroad grade. Hoo visit the Second Manassas battlefield and hike the unfinished railroad, its a haunting place where thousands were wounded and killed in brutal combat.

CSA11B Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> CSA11B Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > does anyone know? Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > CSA11B Wrote:
> > >
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> >
> > > -----
> > > > Sorry but that story its nothing but a
> story,
> > > > regarding the unfinished RR, if y'all want
> I
> > > can
> > > > fill ya in on the real story...
> > >
> > > Sure, I'd love to hear it. The floor is
> > yours...!
> >
> > Disclaimer, I don't work in interpretation and
> > more info can be found on the parks site...
> > The remains of the railroad bed that pass
> through
> > the battlefield are pat of a track that was
> being
> > laid through the 1850s by a group of investors
> who
> > wants a more direct route to get cross to
> market
> > without having to pay the existing railroads
> fees.
> > I believe it was to go from Culpepper or
> somewhere
> > (I forget) to Alexandria's port. But they ran
> out
> > of money just before the war started, never
> laying
> > ant track on the bed. There are many cuts and
> > fills as well as culverts and bridge abutments
> > still remaining.
>
> Pt.2
> So as far as the unfinished railroad is concerned
> within the park boundary, General Jackson used its
> cuts and fills as a ready made fortification when
> he his his soldiers behind it. He engaged passing
> Yankee troops at the Brawner farm and the battle
> lasted three days, with very fierce combat
> between the armies along the railroad grade. Hoo
> visit the Second Manassas battlefield and hike the
> unfinished railroad, its a haunting place where
> thousands were wounded and killed in brutal
> combat.

In 1861, Union Mill Road was a dirt wagon track used primarily by local farmers. It ran south from Braddock road, and after meandering through the countryside on the east side of Little Rocky Run for nearly four miles, it crossed the Orange and Alexandria railroad tracks.

#Situated next to the road and tracks was Union Mills Station, one of the original stops on the railroad line. Located near Popes Head Creek close to its confluence with Bull Run, Union Mills was, along with Sangster, Fairfax and Burke, among the first stations opened when the Orange and Alexandria Railroad began operation in the early 1850s. This far-reaching new form of transportation technology helped expand the markets for the region's farm products and drastically reduced transportation and travel costs. The railroad brought increased prosperity and improved the quality of life for the people in Northern Virginia even though train wrecks at the unheard of speed of 25 miles per hour rapidly became a major cause of accidental death.

#When the Civil War began, the railroad was suddenly transformed from being a benign mover of civilian freight and passengers into a military implement of war. Almost overnight, its benefits changed into hardships for those who lived near the tracks. Union Mills was no longer a quiet country station; it became a place with a high degree of military significance. It was so important that U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and Confederate President Jefferson Davis knew all about Union Mills. Generals such as Joseph E. Johnston, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, John Pope, George Meade and thousands of the soldiers who served with them also became familiar with the location. During the first year of the war, the Confederates made the Union Mills area part of the defense line that ran from Centreville to Manassas Junction. After the Confederates departed in early 1862, Federal troops were stationed at Union Mills to protect the Bull Run railroad bridge (destroyed and rebuilt seven times during the war) and they expanded the fortifications and constructed a number of new ones. As the armies marched and countermarched along the railroad line, the defenses were further modified as they changed hands.

#As the war got underway, it became clear to President Lincoln and his advisors that it was going to be impossible to guard long stretches of track against attack by Confederate raiders. If the rail lines could not be protected from damage, they would have to be repaired and returned to service in the shortest time possible. In April 1862, Herman Haupt, a railroad construction genius who had a reputation for getting things done, was called to Washington by the Lincoln administration and asked to fix the vexing problem. Haupt was appointed to the position of Chief of Construction and Transportation of the newly established U.S. Military Railroad (USMR), an organization responsible for all railroad operations on captured Confederate tracks.

#As Haupt went to work, it was at places such as Union Mills that his highly organized and specialized repair crews honed their skills as they struggled to keep the Orange and Alexandria line functioning. The rapid repair procedures Haupt developed to replace bridges, track and just about everything else involved in keeping a railroad operating allowed the USMR to keep vital rail supply lines functioning.

#The USMR established a base of operations at Union Mills. It was a facility to service equipment and store replacement parts for railroad rolling stock, water tanks, prefabricated bridges, ties and rails. The knowledge USMR crews gained in Northern Virginia proved to be an invaluable logistical asset to Lincoln's war effort. As new techniques were developed and tested, the information was passed along to the other locations where the USMR operated trains. During the later years of the war, Gen. Sherman's Union army drove into Georgia utilizing a sophisticated rail supply network that could be repaired almost as fast as Rebel raiders could wreck it.

#Down the tracks west of Union Mills, the Union army established a massive quartermaster depot at Manassas Junction. By the late summer of 1862, the sprawling depot covered nearly a square mile, its warehouses crammed with military supplies of every description. On the depot's two spur railroad sidings, each a half mile long, were parked more than 100 box cars. When the telegraph line to Washington suddenly went dead in late August 1862, Union commanders had no way to know that it was Gen. Stonewall Jackson's 23,000 man army corps that had suddenly emerged out of nowhere and pounced on the supply base. Thinking that it was no more than an annoying cavalry raid, they rushed a brigade of New Jersey troops by rail to the vicinity of Union Mills with the objective of holding the bridge and possibly driving away the raiders. Having no idea of what they were getting into, the unseasoned and eager troops disembarked from the trains and marched west. When they ran into Jackson's veterans they were routed, their commander and approximately 135 others killed or wounded and another 200 captured. The panicked survivors fled eastward, abandoning the bridge and bringing with them the shocking news that there was more than Rebel cavalry at the supply depot.

#To prevent another rude interruption of the depot's looting and to disrupt rail traffic, Jackson ordered the bridge destroyed. When the Confederates pulled out during the night of Aug. 27, 1862, they left behind them a sky reddened by burning warehouses, rail cars and exploding ammunition dumps. The great Union supply depot had been obliterated, never again to be rebuilt. Haupt's crews went to work and reconstructed the Bull Run railroad bridge, only to see it quickly lost again after the Union army retreated into Washington in early September following the battle of Second Manassas.

#On Oct. 15, 1863, Gen. George Meade, located at his headquarters in Centreville, notified the War Department in Washington that "Generals Warren and Sykes were successfully withdrawn last night, and the army is now at Union Mills, Centreville, Chantilly, and Fairfax Court House, awaiting the movements of the enemy." Union Mills was the southern anchor of a strong Federal defensive position that stretched through Centreville to Frying Pan Church. The VI Corps held the line between Frying Pan Church and Chantilly. The II Corps occupied the section between Chantilly and Centreville. The I and III Corps controlled the ground south of Centreville to Union Mills. The V Corps, in reserve, oscillated between Centreville and Fairfax Court House, marching back and forth four times in four days while its weary soldiers tried to figure out what the generals were trying to accomplish with all the useless movement.

#Knowing that Gen. Meade had 80,000 men in his battle line, President Lincoln wrote to him on Oct. 16, 1863, strongly suggesting that Meade launch an attack against Lee's forces. The President told the general that he would personally take the blame if the attack failed. We will never know if Gen. Meade intended to take President Lincoln's advice because Lee's army began to withdraw on its own accord on Oct. 17. As the Union army moved slowly in pursuit through the chilly early autumn mud, the repair gangs began the work of rebuilding the destroyed Orange and Alexandria right of way.

#A new stop named Devereux Station was established on the railroad line less than two miles east of Union Mills during the war. It began as a place to load and ship the wood burned in steam locomotives and the timber needed for military construction projects. The station's name was changed to Clifton in the late 1860s. After the war ended, Union Mills faded from the maps, its civilian functions most likely absorbed by the new station at Clifton. With the control and repair of the railroad line no longer a military necessity, Union Mills had lost its last reason for existence. The modern railroad follows the route of the old Orange and Alexandria line. The abutments of the Civil War era bridge still stand like lonely sentinels next to current railroad bridge over Bull Run. The stretch of shiny track running west out of Clifton is a reminder of the time Herman Haupt and his repair crews helped make military history and Union Mills was a location of real consequence.

The town of Hemdon sits on land that once belonged to Robert "King" Carter Jr. and Thomas Barnes through King's grants. Originally a small crossroads and farming community, it began to grow in importance as the port city of Alexandria was looking to expand the Loudoun & Hampshire railroad during the mid 1850's. The rail depot was built in 1857, and the rail lines reached Herndon in 1859. More buildings and stores were built as people moved into the area. Soon a small town developed with dairy farming as the main industry.
On July 13,1858, the town was named Herndon after Captain William Lewis Herndon, a Naval hero who went down with his ship, the "Central America", on September 12, 1857. The building Jimmy's is in is believed to have been built in 1897, and was originally both a Tavern and a General Store. Many tenants and businesses have come and gone since 1897 including a grocery store, sporting goods store, and a butcher shop! Some local residents will tell you the story of Walter, a friendly ghost who resides here at Jimmy's !

After countless hours of planning and renovating, proprietors Jimmy, Maureen, and Kelsey Cirrito opened Jimmy's doors on May 29,1997, and are happy to bring a bit of history back to downtown Herndon -- Jimmy's Old Town Tavern. We at Jimmy's sincerely hope you'll enjoy the oak, brass, and antiques, as well as our commitment to impeccable service and products.

Jimmy's Old Town Tvn in Herndon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Jimmy's Old Town Tavern in Herndon is said to be
> haunted. From their website...
>
> http://www.jimmystavern.com/history.html
>
> The town of Hemdon sits on land that once belonged
> to Robert "King" Carter Jr. and Thomas Barnes
> through King's grants. Originally a small
> crossroads and farming community, it began to grow
> in importance as the port city of Alexandria was
> looking to expand the Loudoun & Hampshire railroad
> during the mid 1850's. The rail depot was built in
> 1857, and the rail lines reached Herndon in 1859.
> More buildings and stores were built as people
> moved into the area. Soon a small town developed
> with dairy farming as the main industry.
> On July 13,1858, the town was named Herndon after
> Captain William Lewis Herndon, a Naval hero who
> went down with his ship, the "Central America", on
> September 12, 1857. The building Jimmy's is in is
> believed to have been built in 1897, and was
> originally both a Tavern and a General Store. Many
> tenants and businesses have come and gone since
> 1897 including a grocery store, sporting goods
> store, and a butcher shop! Some local residents
> will tell you the story of Walter, a friendly
> ghost who resides here at Jimmy's !
>
> After countless hours of planning and renovating,
> proprietors Jimmy, Maureen, and Kelsey Cirrito
> opened Jimmy's doors on May 29,1997, and are happy
> to bring a bit of history back to downtown Herndon
> -- Jimmy's Old Town Tavern. We at Jimmy's
> sincerely hope you'll enjoy the oak, brass, and
> antiques, as well as our commitment to impeccable
> service and products.
>
> Has anyone ever seen anything there?

Does anyone know the story of Walter the ghost? I couldn't find anything about it online.

Ghost man in VA hospital Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> kev Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Cool story. Wonder if workers at other nursing
> > homes have similar experiences. Are you sure
> your
> > not trying to find patterns (when you talk
> about
> > people dying in sets)?
> >
>
> Realistically, I think the "death comes in threes"
> thing might be a matter of perception. (Though,
> ironically, I argued the other side of this
> question just a couple of days ago.) In other
> words, whenever two bad things happen close
> together we wait for a third. Then, when something
> does eventually happen, we connect it.
>
> I say this because I was remembering several years
> ago when three very similar actors died, as I
> recalled, one right after the other. I went back
> to check my memory before posting about it. Bob
> Denver (who played Gilligan) died 10/02/05 and Don
> Adams (Maxwell Smart) died 10/25/05. Don Knotts
> (Barney Fife), though, didn't die until five
> months later on 2/24/06. So is that connected or
> just a coincidence?
>
> A friend of mine has worked there for eleven
> years, and heard about him when she started, so
> I'm not sure. The facility is around thirty-five
> years old. I don't think the people who see him
> know a death follows his appearance; they are just
> frightened. I want to clarify though: residents do
> not always report his appearance before someone
> passes away; however, any time he is reported
> being seen, a death follows very shortly after.
> (Usually within hours.) Thank you for your
> questions! I would like to know what is going on!

The scariest story I have heard is from a nurse who said that one night she was floated to oncology at the hospital she used to work at. She was given a patient who was passing away and had been unconscious for several days. At one point during the night the nurse went into the room and the patient was at the top of the bed and looked at her and said, "don't let them take me!", the nurse was freaked out and asked her who was going to take her and she said that black thing up there and pointed up in the air. This patient died within minutes.

Some years ago my friend's fiance and 3 other friends moved into a brand new 4 bedroom townhouse near George Mason. From the very first night they moved in they would hear someone running in the hallway banging on everyone's doors (typical of guys), this would happen when the guys would be in bed. Everyone would be in bed but they would all think that one of the other guys was doing it.

Finally after a week they all had enough and confronted each other about the racket every night. All 4 of them denied it. By now they were all spooked. So that night after they all went to bed, they hear the same thing again - somebody running past their bedrooms and banging on the doors. This time they were really ******* themselves. They heard really loud bangs like heavy stuff being thrown around. They all jumped out of bed and ran out into the living room -

They found all their furniture upside down.... AND, the walls in the living room had been CLAWED. Like really deep huge claws.

THEN as they were standing there thinking what in Gods name happened they saw black footprints appearing on the ceiling coming towards them!!

They took off from the house and rang the landlord trying to tell him that they cant stay there anymore. The landlord comes over and says - well, you guys lasted the longest. The other tenants dont even last one night. I just recently learned that the townhouse was heavily damaged in a fire.

My Grandparents lived outside of Pinckneyville. My cousins RuthAnne (age 11) and Frankie (age unknown at the time) were brother and sister who spent most of their childhood at our Grandparents house. One night in 1969 they were coming home from town and my cousin RuthAnne was struck by a drunk driver – she was thrown from her bicycle and died instantly. My family was in California when we received the sad news of her death.

In 1971 my Dad retired from the Navy and he got a job in the Chicago area. This was great because his family in Southern Illinois were much closer and as a result we spent a lot of weekends visiting them. We spent the night at his parents’ house and here is where the ghost story begins.

During one of those visits in the middle of the night my Mom heard a child calling for their “Mommy”. Thinking it was one of her 5 children she got up to see if we were okay. We were all sound asleep so she went back to bed.

The next time we visited she woke up with the feeling that something was not right. She looked out into the living room where my two sisters were sleeping and saw a young girl standing there looking down at my younger sister with her arms outstretched. Mom got spooked and hid her head under the blanket. She then realized it was my dead cousin standing out there and peeked her head out from the blanket. RuthAnne was still there. All of a sudden she started to evaporate and went out of the room through the living room wall.

The next morning Mom tells my Dad that we are leaving. Dad, as expected, was mad and asked why. Mom said she saw RuthAnne and was never going to spend another night in this house. And she never did. When we visited again her, my dad and my youngest sister always stayed in a motel. We had other relatives but she refused to stay at their house too. She later told me that she felt uneasy at my Aunt’s house. I think that’s because she sensed that it was haunted too.

So my Aunt lived in Nashville, Ill. Her house had 4 ghosts – her dead husband, the original owner and her little dog, and a little blonde haired girl.

The original owner didn’t like anyone sleeping in her room. If you did she would pull the blankets off in the middle of the night. Her little dog was seen by my cousin and her friend. One day while doing homework in the kitchen, in walked a little black dog who went under the table. My cousin and her friend were stunned and when they looked the dog was not there.

My Uncle died in 1976 when a piece of steel fell on him at the steel mill where he worked. In 1979 my Grandpa died and while staying at my Aunt’s house my Dad had two ghostly encounters. He had the privilege of having his blankets pulled off of him one night while sleeping in the original owner’s room. While sitting at the kitchen table one evening my Aunt told him that every night at a certain time (the same time her dead husband came home from work when he was alive) the back door would open by itself. And sure enough it did at the time she said it would.

My Aunt would later tell me that she could never get anyone to spend the night at her house. She told me that my cousin Cathy, who was very little when her Grandpa died, had made it clear she wouldn’t. Seems she had woken up one night and saw a man in overalls standing in the doorway. My Aunt told me she had woken up on several occasions and saw her dead husband standing next to the bed. She told me she wasn’t scared and always asked him what he wanted.
No one knows who the little blonde haired girl is. She likes to cry. One night my Aunt woke up to this crying and when she went out to the hallway she saw this very pretty little blonde haired girl standing there just crying. My Aunt asked her if she needed help and when she did she just evaporated. Later when she told my cousin Tina about this ghost Tina said she always used to see her when she was little. My Aunt has passed away and one wonders if she too is now a ghost in her house.

Getting back to my cousin RuthAnne, when my Mom told my Dad that she saw RuthAnne that night his parents said nothing – they just smiled. Everyone thought she was “crazy” but my cousin Steve had an experience that convinced him something wasn’t right in that house. He told my Mom that while standing in one part of the living room it got real cold all of a sudden. My sister also thought she was nuts but after hearing some of the stories about “that house” as she put it, she realized that Mom wasn’t so nutty. She’s never told me the stories though.

As for me, I never thought Mom was crazy because I believe in ghosts and had my own encounter with RuthAnne I believe. During the latter ‘70s when Grandpa was ill from cancer he and Grandma moved into Nashville. During one of our visits he, Tina and I went to the old house to retrieve some things. It was a hot day. I was standing right in front of the door and when he opened it the BIGGEST burst of cold air shot out of that door as if it was greeting us. The cold air was just not “normal” because the house had been shut up for so long and it was a hot day. I believe it was RuthAnne.

Alexandria INOVA hospital is built on the site of the Vauxcleus mansion, an ante-bellum plantation mansion. During the Civil War a Confederate soldier was seen and shot dead by a Union picket while sneaking up the ravine to visit a girl friend in the Vauxcleus mansion. Since, it is said you can see his ghost moving through the woods on moonlit nights.

Springfield - Bablat Afif - In the 1880s a Palestinian immigrated to the US and was brutally tortured and then murdered in some woods which are now known as Lake Accotink Park. It is said that on some nights he is heard moaning, "Arrrrrghh". On rare occasions he is also have said to appear in the form of have human half beast with an eye patch.
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abelard Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've heard stories like this second hand a couple
> of times, especially from the area around the
> stone bridge - not sure what to make of them.
> It's possible that human suffering 'leaves an
> imprint' of some sort (oh so goes the theory) but
> I'd expect other places to absolutely glow with
> ghosts. I'm been to Dachau and Passchendaele, and
> as far as I know, neither is famous for ghosts.
> This even though you can fairly well feel the
> horror radiating from these places.

Bullrun Manasses/Cobblestone Bridge - Civil War soldiers have been seen crossing the bridge at night.
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chuckhoffmann Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> vauxcleus mansion Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Alexandria INOVA hospital is built on the site
> of
> > the Vauxcleus mansion, an ante-bellum
> plantation
> > mansion. During the Civil War a Confederate
> > soldier was seen and shot dead by a Union
> picket
> > while sneaking up the ravine to visit a girl
> > friend in the Vauxcleus mansion. Since, it is
> said
> > you can see his ghost moving through the woods
> on
> > moonlit nights.
> >
> > Has anyone ever seen or heard this story?
>
> You're thinking of Vaucluse. It was located in
> what was then Fairfax County near the Virginia
> Theological Seminary. It was destroyed during the
> Civil War to make way for Fort Worth, one of the
> many forts that ringed Washington D.C..
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaucluse_%28plantatio
> n%29
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Worth,_Virginia

Do you have anything on the story of the soldier that was killed and the rumors of a ghost being spotted in those woods?

I had a friend down from CT. I was showing him the historical sites around Richmond, specifically Cold Harbor Battlefield on Route 156, Hanover County, VA. I happened to bring my tape recorder with me. At Cold Harbor, we left the tape recorder running and walked away from it. My CT friend got the strangest feeling of deja vu. He knew exactly what had happened there without reading the markers. He had a strong feeling he was actually there. He pointed out the very few trees that were 140 years old or more. He knows nothing about how to tell how old a tree is. When we picked up the tape recorder and got back in the car, we rewound the tape and pressed play. There was shouting, cannon fire, gun fire and screams on the tape. It gave us both goose bumps! I took photographs over there not too long ago. Appearing on the photograph was an officer on horseback. That battlefield is very active, especially on the anniversary of the battle.
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Ghost on the Battlefield Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My family and I were on vacation in DC and we went
> to the Manassas battlefield. We video taped there,
> and later that day we were watching the tape and
> we noticed the woman dressed in white walking
> along the fenceline. There were no reenactments
> going on that day, and we didn't see her there. If
> you look to the left of the house, you will see a
> small black fence with a marker that encloses the
> graves of Mrs. Henry, her daughter, and her son.
> The ghost is walking away from the graves to just
> an open field. We are convinced that this was a
> paranormal experience.
>
> You can watch the video here:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detail
> page&v=G27tgEiUE2o

Creepy, I managed to get this screenshot of the figure from the video. Very interesting.
Attachments:

Battlefield Cobblestone Bridge Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> abelard Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I've heard stories like this second hand a
> couple
> > of times, especially from the area around the
> > stone bridge - not sure what to make of them.
> > It's possible that human suffering 'leaves an
> > imprint' of some sort (oh so goes the theory)
> but
> > I'd expect other places to absolutely glow with
> > ghosts. I'm been to Dachau and Passchendaele,
> and
> > as far as I know, neither is famous for ghosts.
> > This even though you can fairly well feel the
> > horror radiating from these places.
>
> Bullrun Manasses/Cobblestone Bridge - Civil War
> soldiers have been seen crossing the bridge at
> night.

Maybe those are ghosts of retreating Yankees, were they headed towards Centerville and DC at top speed?
All jokes aside, the Confederate army blew the "Stone Bridge" in 1862 to slow down any union units that were to advance after the Confederate army left the immediate area. The bridge was re-decked enough to suffice through the war, and ultimately rebuilt. That said, the current Stone Bridge over Bull Run is a recreation of the original, with only some of the base support pieces as remaining original parts. It has been a popular tourist attraction since the war and remains a very photogenic location, especially in the spring when our native bluebells are in bloom along Bull Run.

chuckhoffmann Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> vauxcleus mansion Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > chuckhoffmann Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > vauxcleus mansion Wrote:
> > >
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> >
> > > -----
> > > > Alexandria INOVA hospital is built on the
> > site
> > > of
> > > > the Vauxcleus mansion, an ante-bellum
> > > plantation
> > > > mansion. During the Civil War a Confederate
> > > > soldier was seen and shot dead by a Union
> > > picket
> > > > while sneaking up the ravine to visit a
> girl
> > > > friend in the Vauxcleus mansion. Since, it
> is
> > > said
> > > > you can see his ghost moving through the
> > woods
> > > on
> > > > moonlit nights.
> > > >
> > > > Has anyone ever seen or heard this story?
> > >
> > > You're thinking of Vaucluse. It was located
> in
> > > what was then Fairfax County near the
> Virginia
> > > Theological Seminary. It was destroyed during
> > the
> > > Civil War to make way for Fort Worth, one of
> > the
> > > many forts that ringed Washington D.C..
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaucluse_%28plantatio
>
> >
> > > n%29
> > >
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Worth,_Virginia
> >
> > Do you have anything on the story of the
> soldier
> > that was killed and the rumors of a ghost being
> > spotted in those woods?
>
> Not to piss on your Post Toasties, but it sounds
> like it's just a story. The mistress of Vaucluse
> was Monimia Fairfax Cary, a daughter of Thomas
> Fairfax, 9th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, who moved to
> Vaucluse after her husband, Archibald Cary, died
> in 1854.
>
> Monimia and Archibald had three children,
> Constance, Falkland and Archibald. Constance, so
> the story goes, buried two trunks full of the
> Fairfax family silver on the property and fled
> with the rest of the family to Richmond.
>
> There's no buried treasure at Vaucluse, though.
> After the war, Constance (who had written
> newspaper columns in Richmond under the name
> "Refugitta" and also met her future husband,
> Burton Norvell Harrison, there) returned to the
> rubble of Vaucluse and dug up the Fairfax family
> silver.
>
> 50 years after the war, Constance Cary Harrison
> wrote a memoir called "Recollections Grave and
> Gay" which is available on Google Books at
> http://books.google.com/books?id=UeUEAAAAYAAJ and
> was reprinted in "Refugitta of Richmond: The
> Wartime Recollections, Grave and Gay, of Constance
> Cary Harrison", edited by Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes
> Jr. and S. Kittrell Rushing.
>
> Vaucluse was leveled pretty quickly when the Union
> soldiers took over. There's a diary entry dated
> July 30, 1861 by Judith McGuire that describes it
> as being completely destroyed and Fort Worth
> erected in its place.
>
> So, no mansion (destroyed, and it wasn't really a
> mansion anyway) and no girls (fled to Richmond)
> for some hapless Confederate solider to risk and
> lose his life trying to visit. It's possible some
> Confederate infiltrator made it this far east and
> was shot for his trouble, but unlikely.
>
> Mominia Fairfax Cary died in 1875, and Constance
> Cary Harrison lived until 1920.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constance_Cary_Harris
> on

Boy, that would stink, Johnny Reb says "I'll come back to see ya if my unit comes back up from Richmond", comes back to Fairfax area, sneaks away from camp, finds the house gone, girl gone, and then gets shot by a Yankee vidette from the near by fort. Bummer, I'd haunt the damn place too!

I am such a frail woman these days that I'm not sure if this is a ghost sighting or if I'm going crazy. Today I was just watering my plants when I heard a sudden noise. I went back to my house to see what was going on, but I stopped dead in my tracks. There was a ghost of my childhood playmate! She smiled lovingly and said ''Martha, oh Martha, oh how I miss you dearly! Martha, oh Martha, my days are every dreary! So help little old woman! I thought we were friends!''

All while this was going on my friend (Samantha/Sammy) was transforming from a child to an old frail woman! It scared me out of my mind, so I got in my car and drove to my son's house. After that he said I had been foolish, and I was seeing things. I headed home, and this has been happening every day since.

Martha Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I am such a frail woman these days that I'm not
> sure if this is a ghost sighting or if I'm going
> crazy. Today I was just watering my plants when I
> heard a sudden noise. I went back to my house to
> see what was going on, but I stopped dead in my
> tracks. There was a ghost of my childhood
> playmate! She smiled lovingly and said ''Martha,
> oh Martha, oh how I miss you dearly! Martha, oh
> Martha, my days are every dreary! So help little
> old woman! I thought we were friends!''
>
> All while this was going on my friend
> (Samantha/Sammy) was transforming from a child to
> an old frail woman! It scared me out of my mind,
> so I got in my car and drove to my son's house.
> After that he said I had been foolish, and I was
> seeing things. I headed home, and this has been
> happening every day since.

This means that you will probably die soon. My mother passed away a few months after she started seeing dead friends. First she saw them outside the house and in the few weeks before her death, she could see them in the house. Always nice, always smiling.

Used to live on Pace Street and I have seen / heard so many things like scratching behind me when I'm trying to sleep and when I turn nobody is there and it stops. One time out the corner of my eye I saw a dark black hand that was torn and hurt reach from the top of the steps and pull back. I see kids a lot that are in orange torn robes; I have dreams about them that leave me thinking their names are Niki and David, a girl and boy. I know they're there because I never told my bff about it and she told me she saw a boy in an orange robe! :o other things have happened too- very scary things!.

Despite being part of a series of victories in 1862, the “Page Grays” of Co. H, 33rd Virginia Infantry, had seen their fair share of desertions (not, by any means, that the “Grays” were slackers, as the company also saw more than its fair share of casualties in some of the hottest contests of the war… and was regularly designated the color company for the regiment, quite possibly an honor bestowed upon the company for their part in taking the guns at First Manassas). While in winter quarters, and during the high tide of courts-martial in Stonewall Jackson’s Second Corps, those desertions caught-up with the company, and more than a few charges were brought to courts-martial. Seven men were sentenced to death, while eleven others were sentenced to a wide array of punishments, including the laying-on of 25-39 lashes across a bare back. Four of those sentenced to death were fortunate enough to evade execution because of technicalities; specifically, the courts-martial recorder had improperly maintained a complete record of the courts. In the end, however, Gabriel L. Price , Andrew J. Knight [note 1], and William Pence were not among the luckiest men. I have the good fortune of knowing more about Pence’s story than that of the other two.

Pence had actually deserted at Elk Run [in the vicinity of Conrad's Store] on April 20, 1862, as Jackson was gearing-up for the best days of his 1862 Valley Campaign; but didn’t show-up again in the muster rolls until December 21, 1862, when he was recorded as having “joined from desertion”… and, by the way, the “joined” part is not indicative of a voluntary event. Also, Pence had just “enlisted” on April 5… so his quick desertion seems to reflect another story altogether, regarding enlistments immediately following the enforcement of the first Confederate Conscription Act… but that will be a story for another time, perhaps.

On a local level, Pence’s story was documented in April 1927, when Jacob H. Coffman wrote about the events surrounding his capture by conscript/deserter hunters:

Pence… lived with his wife on the Pike, a mile West of Stanley. She was Rebecca Short, a daughter of the late ‘Dickey’ Short, by his first wife. They were law-abiding people. When the officers came to take him, she would not let them in the house, but they forced an entrance and the wife became so enraged that she hit one of the officers over the head with a frying pan. He told her for that act she would be sorry as long as she lived. They then went away taking Pence with them and he, with the other two was booked to pay the penalty.

Despite the sentence, Stonewall Brigade commander, Gen. E.F. Paxton, intervened. It may be that Paxton’s actions were the result of appeals made by, as Coffman put it, “influential citizens” of Page County, who “went to work to bring about his reprieve”. Paxton did note that with all three of these men being from the same company and county, the execution of the three might bear some undesirable implications in discipline and morale in the “Grays”. In lieu of the execution of all three, Paxton recommended that the men be allowed to draw lots, leaving only one to be executed. Not one for leniency in these matters, Jackson did not endorse the idea on the routing slip, and forwarded the paperwork to Gen. Robert E. Lee, who, in turn, agreed to Paxton’s recommendation.

Lots were drawn by the three men… and Pence became the unluckiest of the unlucky three. On February 28, 1863, the execution was carried out… and documented by some who watched.

Map-maker Jedediah Hotchkiss wrote simply that “A deserter from the 1st Brigade was shot today, and one escaped yesterday” [though I also recall finding, somewhere, that Hotchkiss remembered that Pence "wept bitterly, wishing to see his family"].

Mager William Steele, of the 48th Virginia Infantry documented a good deal more. After the entire division had formed near the site of the execution, in a deep hollow near Camp Winder, “the condemned man leaning on the arms of two chaplains” was brought into view. Steele wrote:

… we went up to the stake playing the Dead March… When we got to the place the men that were carrying the coffin put it down by the side of the stake and the condemned man sat upon it leaning against the stake. the preachers sang and prayed and then shook hands with him.

It so happens that Jacob Coffman’s brother, James H. Coffman (remember the story about the desertion of the Coffman brothers?), was also among the men who witnessed the execution. Coffman recalled the story of the incident, as remembered by his brother:

Pence was taken out in a field and set on his coffin, back of which a stake had been driven, his hands tied back of him and to the stake and while the band played that old familiar hymn, ‘Oporto,’ found in the old Harmonia Sacra, beginning with ‘Come Hither Ye Faithful,’ etc.; twenty men were drawn up in line, some twenty steps off and each man was handed a gun, ten supposed loaded and the other ten primed only, so in this way it might be known, who shot him.
When asked for his last statements, Pence asked to see his brother; a request that was not honored.

Again, Pence was asked for a last statement, to which he replied, “No, nothing.” When the order to fire was given, Pence “threw up his hands and fell over. He did not speak after he was shot, he gasped for breath twice. His last words were “O, what will my poor wife do…” it was just three weeks since William’s seventh wedding anniversary.

Jacob Coffman continued:

A shallow grave was dug and they buried him, notifying his relatives… Henry Pence, a full brother, who was at that time in charge at the Gibbons Mills, now the Willow Grove Mills, South of Luray, together with Frank Short, a half brother of Rebecca Pence, went with a two-horse wagon and brought the body home. I went to see him after he was laid out and he had a very peaceful look. The late T.M. Offenbacker [... and here's the first family link to this story... Offenbacker being my third great-grand uncle], cut a bullet out of his wrist and it may have been found among some of his effects after his death.

Clearly, Rebecca Pence was not like the Southern woman portrayed in this image, refusing to let her male relative into her home because he had deserted his unit.
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And now comes a part of this story that some have felt inclined to doubt, but we have it from the mouth of two witnesses, the way the truth is supposed to be proven, for both Pence and Short vouched for the story. They said on the way home with the body as they came to the foot of the Ridge, on the Madison side, night came upon them, and as it was raining very hard, they pulled aside, unhooked the horses and after giving them hay, they lay down under the wagons, not for a bed, but to keep out of the rain and just as all was quiet, the voice of a man was heard singing directly over the wagon and little higher than the tops of the trees and continued to sing until the break of day. As they began to hook up, the singing ceased. They said it was beautiful, but only one hymn, and it sounded very much like Pence, the dead man.

So, in the end, we not only have a sad story surrounding an execution, but also a ghost story… and was there also the hope of a curse fulfilled?

Coffman also remembered…

Mrs. Pence said that her prayer was that all three of the men that had a hand in bringing about her husband’s death, might be killed before the war ended. Now I knew all three of the men she held responsible, and the one, a captain, was soon shot in the forehead and killed instantly; the next one, a lieutenant, was shot in the throat and killed instantly; the third man, also a lieutenant, was shot through the lung and lingered a while, but died; thus, Mrs. Pence claims to have had her prayer answered. She afterwards married Wm. Flemmings, of Leaksville, where both lived for many years and passed on.
Were Rebecca Pence’s prayers really… curses?

Among the three indicated officers who met death, we have… yet another family tie in one of my third great grand-uncles, Captain Michael Shuler… and one of my distant first cousins, Lieutenant Oliver Hazard Perry Kite. Shuler was killed “instantly” (and, yes, I believe he may have been shot in the forehead) at the Wilderness on May 5, 1864. Kite was seriously wounded in the chest on May 10, 1864, and “lingered”… dying on the one-year anniversary of Shuler’ death, May 5, 1866. As for the other lieutenant, who was shot in the throat and killed instantly… I can’t seem to pinpoint who this may have been.

Ghosts and curses? What do you think?

Note 1. Knight later deserted again, with B.F. Price; both were taken as POWs in Pennsylvania in July 1864, and sent to Washington, D.C. Jacob H. Coffman wrote about Knight in 1927:

Andrew Knight, [was] of the Mountain district near Mauck. He was a brother of Jacob, George and Jack Knight. I do not think he sought a reprieve but took a chance in the dead hour of night and got behind the tent of the guard house and slipped through a wagon train parked just back of it. He made for dear life for such it proved to be to him. He made his way to Media, not far from Philadelphia, where he worked on a farm until after the war, when he came back home and took his family back with him, where he stayed until the death of his wife, after which he came back to Page county and later on went to Baltimore, where he married the widow of Jas. Knight, but died about two years later.

Love this discussion. We grew up in a new home just off Rt. 605. I believe the road was Rt 626. The house had a Civil War Officer in it. He was often spotted by my siblings and parents. He enjoyed moving and reading the local newspaper and turning the water on and flushing the toilets. We could hear him often at night pacing up and down the hallway. If my bedroom door was open, he would stand at the foot of my bed like he wanted conversation. If I spoke he would disappear in smoke.

My brother was getting a glass of water one night in the kitchen, and someone behind him said they would like a glass too. He filled the second glass with water, turned to offer it to his sister, and the officer went up in smoke. This house has been sold multiple times and always back on the market within 6-8 months each time. I think others have seen this officer!

Julianna Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Used to live on Pace Street and I have seen /
> heard so many things like scratching behind me
> when I'm trying to sleep and when I turn nobody is
> there and it stops. One time out the corner of my
> eye I saw a dark black hand that was torn and hurt
> reach from the top of the steps and pull back. I
> see kids a lot that are in orange torn robes; I
> have dreams about them that leave me thinking
> their names are Niki and David, a girl and boy. I
> know they're there because I never told my bff
> about it and she told me she saw a boy in an
> orange robe! :o other things have happened too-
> very scary things!.

Wow small world! We rented a house on North High Street that was haunted. The house had been divided into 2 apartments. One upstairs and one down. On several occasions I left the apartment only to return to having tons of houseflies on my windows in the back of the apartment where the kitchen area was. They weren't buzzing around just on the windows inside. No windows or doors were left open. I never could find a logical explanation for this. Once I was awakened by a loud banging in the empty apartment downstairs. I never felt comfortable in that apartment and once when I went to look at the empty apartment downstairs I was alone and an overwhelming feeling of doom came over me and all I wanted to do was just get out of there quickly. It was horrible. I found out much later when I was moving that several people had experienced these things too. I never knew the history of the house but I know what I felt and heard were real. I was glad to get out of there.

On Black Creek Road, there is a house that is known to have a ''portal of hell''. Just recently, I have witnessed a spirit of someone from the 1800's who seemed to be stabbed or shot in the gut. Stories tell that the spirit I witnessed was that of a teacher that went insane and became a murderer who was either shot or stabbed in the gut.

This spirit is very dangerous and should not be messed with. There are many others in this house as it was built in 1801. This house is extremely dangerous and should be left alone.

“I’m a thousand miles away from home just waitin’ for a train.”
--Jimmie Rodgers, “Waitin’ for a train,” 1928

Until it was replaced by the interstate highway system, the railroad was the predominant mode of transportation in the nation for more than a century. For small towns and communities, the train station served as a link with the outside world and even deeper as a place of transition. From these stations, children began the transition to adulthood, leaving a provincial life behind to pursue opportunities in the larger world. All who left would be changed; some for the better, some for the worse and some would never return.

Still, others would transition from life to death at the very beginning of their journeys: they would find death awaiting them at the train station.

Straddling the state line between Tennessee and Virginia, Bristol’s State Street sits directly on that line with the street’s north side in Virginia and its south side in Tennessee. Originally part of a large plantation, the land now occupied by the town was developed once the owner was notified that two railroads would be meeting at that spot. Joseph R. Anderson—son-in-law to the plantation’s owner—erected a home and business house just south of what is now State Street, directly across the street for what would become the site for the town’s train station.

The first train pulled into the original depot at this site in 1856. With it, the train brought decades of prosperity to the town. Local historian, V. N. “Bud” Phillips, notes that, “there would have been no Bristol had it not been for the coming of the railroad.” The massive brick station that currently stands was constructed in 1902 and is the third building to stand on the site. Once passenger service ended in 1969, the depot was used briefly for shopping and dining but then it stood empty for some years. In 1999, the Romanesque structure was purchased by a foundation and renovated into an events facility.

The great country singer, Jimmie Rodgers began his transition here from itinerant musician and railroad employee to the Father of Country Music when he stepped from a train in 1927 and recorded two songs in a makeshift studio. Those two songs would inspire a recording career that would propel Rodgers into history.

While no longer the scene of dramatic transitions with arrivals and departures, there remain some lingering spirits from those who made dramatic transitions at this spot.

On the platform of the previous depot, a young lady, Emma Tompkins, stood with her travel bag on the morning of May 5, 1887. Her good-for-nothing husband, known as “Big Will,” stood near cajoling her to stay. Emma had spent the previous night, like many nights, alone while her husband caroused among the town’s saloons and brothels. In despair, Emma had finally decided to leave her husband and join her sister in Radford, Virginia.

As she marched herself towards the station, Emma encountered her husband and he followed her to the station platform. As the train pulled into the station, Big Will grabbed the arm of his wife and the couple tumbled onto the track. Emma screamed but it was cut short as the train decapitated her. Her husband was cut in half by the train. Emma’s spirit joined the throng of spirits that already flit through the vast halls of the station.

Bristol Train Station, 2008, by Tim Emerson. Courtesy of Flickr.

One ghost hunting organization somehow determined that some 68 spirits haunt the building. Besides Emma’s wailing spirit, the spirit of a man by the name of Joseph Chalmers King has been known to appear in the building. Dressed in black pants, a white shirt, bowtie and derby hat, the spirit, according to legend, is still waiting on his lost lady-love to arrive. King’s spirit was known to appear when southwestern trains would pull into the depot. His last known appearance was in 1969, when the last southwestern train pulled in.

Throughout the building it still seems there is activity from former railroad passengers. In 2008, the building’s manager clearly heard the main door open followed by footsteps across the great hall. Peering down from a balcony near his office, the manager was unable to see anyone present and was shocked to hear a cough from the invisible being. He also reports the sounds of people talking, coins rattling in an unseen pocket, a clock that always stopped at 8:50 PM and elevators moving without passengers.

The paranormal group, HAUNT Paranormal (Hunting and Understanding National Terrors), investigated the building in 2010, an investigation documented by a reporter from the Bristol Herald Courier. Apparently, the group captured an EVP of a scream, perhaps the same scream that escaped the throat of Emma Tompkins before her neck was severed by the train’s iron wheels.

A 2011 investigation of the train station by Appalachian Truth Seekers was featured on an episode in season four of My Ghost Story: Caught on Camera. The episode concentrates on a few pieces of evidence captured during the investigation. While a few unintelligible EVPs were captured, the most compelling piece of evidence is a video that was captured mostly by accident. One of the investigators was testing out a video camera in what appears to be one of the station’s main halls. In the few seconds of video, a dark figure moves past an upstairs doorway. At the time, none of the investigators or station staff were upstairs.

While investigating the station’s basement, a female investigator was shoved by something that she claims rushed her. After she became angry and told the spirit to stop, an EVP was captured that argues that “I did not do it. Not here, not me.”

While the station has transitioned into its modern usage as an events facility, it seems that the spirits residing there may still be trying to make the transition into the afterlife.

Civil War Field Hospital Wrote:
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> http://autumnforestghosthunter.blogspot.com/2009/0
> 1/fairfax-virginia-green-acres-elementary.html
>
> Sharon, blog name, autum forest, lived in a house
> in Fairfax. I've looked up info. on this house.
> It was a while ago. I'll see if I can find the
> back story on it. If not, go to her blog & try
> to find the location yourself.
>
> This is what Sharon wrote on her site...
>
> I am a ghost hunter who grew up in a Civil War
> field hospital where many unexplainable
> occurrences changed the course of my life. Follow
> me as I toss out theories and mess with your
> thinking. You may not be the same after coming
> here. I plan to open your minds wide about all
> things paranormal

My family moved into Aspen Grove when I was a little toddler. The sights and sounds of the house to me were perfectly normal. Children adapt to realities, like tossing your ball in the air results in it coming back down every time and the sound of a sister screaming at the other sister in another room can be heard through even the thickest walls.

When we first moved in, our family dog, King (a Collie/German Shepherd mix) had some issues with--nothing. My mom would watch the dog growling at the wall, backing off from the center of the room, snapping at something not there, then jumping as if he had been kicked, tail between his legs, howling and rushing off, nearly going through the closed side door. My mother eventually got spooked by his reactions to what seemed to be something he was aware of that she was not. Eventually, King would not come in the house anymore and remained the rest of his 15 years outdoors. We set him up a sweet doggy place in the shed, but he would not go near the inside of the house again

Then, while father was away on his work that took him off in all hours of the night to locations around the country, mom would lie in bed alone and listen. The house seemed to come alive the minute the last person went to bed. Was it settling sounds? Well, nope. One time, father heard it too and commented. She felt great relief.

One day, an old owner of the house visited and lightly mentioned the ghosts. My mother blinked. She was not a believer in ghosts, but the woman explained a story that gave my mother shivers.

"During the Civil War when the home was being used as a field hospital, a young soldier was upstairs in bed when shooting erupted outside. He rushed out without his boots that his parents had given him. He was shot and killed outside. Every night, he still walks the stairs and hall looking for his boots."

My mom, being a closet historian and an art teacher, found some romance in that story and took pity on the soldier. She began to haunt the library and City Hall in search of information about the home's history. I grew up in the dusty records rooms glancing through old soldier's diaries and other books while mother gathered her information.

And, every night I heard him. Booted feet, walking up the stairs, then down the hall to the middle bedroom. He only took a few steps into the bedroom and then in front of the radiator, the board would creak and that was the end of his vigil. As a kid believing my life was being guarded by unseen soldiers, I would turn and whisper to him, "good night." It was a ritual I grew to appreciate until I became a self-conscious adolescent and the thought of a man in my bedroom was kind of creepy. So, I took the end bedroom in the newer part of the house that had no activity.

One night, tired of telling stories of the ghosts and having kids scoff at them, I sat down on the middle of the stairway, turned on my dad's recorder and waited. He started up the stairs. It was the first time I'd been there when it happened and it seemed to go so quickly and then he was on the board I sat on. And, for the first time in all those years, he paused a moment and then continued on. I held my breath and exhaled as he headed down the hall. I realized in that moment that he seemed to have sensed me just enough to stop a moment and wonder before finishing his trek.

It was in that moment one of my theories began and still persists--perhaps they are not the only ghosts; perhaps we are ghosts to them.
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A New Orleans real estate broker has been getting lots of attention since actor/director/comedian George Takei posted a photo on social media Monday of a real estate sign reading “Not Haunted.”

The signs are an apparent reference to New Orleans’ unofficial title as the most or one of the most haunted cities in America.

He says he thought what better way to edge out the competition than with creating a buzz about ghosts. All the signs say “Haunted” and “Not Haunted” because Shelnutt was once a bond broker and believes in hedging his bets, he says.

“Ghost tours is a very large business in the (French) Quarter – very large. I mean extremely large. You can’t imagine,” Shelnutt said. “Thousands of people a night doing ghost tours. It’s, like, real big.”

Shelnutt should know. He also is owner of French Quarter History & Ghostbuster Tours, a company that offers walking tours of French Quarter haunted spots.
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I've been having trouble sleeping & when I do I toss and turn. For years I was a long haul trucker. In December of 2004, I had a delivery in Winchester, Virginia and a second stop in Washington, D.C. At my first stop I was delayed and didn't get unloaded until after 2:00 AM. I left Winchester heading east on Highway 7. Around 2:30 I came to the intersection of Highway & and Route 601 near Bluemont. At a gas station, I pulled in to check my map of Washington in anticipation of my delivery. The station was closed at that hour. There was virtually no traffic going by and it was a cold, moonless night. While I was sitting there, someone knocked on my door, startling me. I jumped and turned off my interior light so I could see outside and rolled down my window.

A man was standing there in an airline flight crew uniform. He had four stripes on his shoulder epaulets indicating a Captain. He was without a jacket on a very cold morning. He climbed up on the step of my cab. He smelled like he had bathed in kerosene. When he got close to my face, I could see that his cap had the TWA insignia on it.

"Could you give me a lift?" he asked in a voice that seemed raspy. I assumed it was from the cold. I was really taken off guard. It was odd. I was in a dark, rural area on a freezing night being asked by an airline pilot wearing short sleeves for a ride. I asked him where he was headed.

"I work for TWA. I gotta get to Dulles to work a flight, please give me a ride, I'll pay you," he responded.

"Well, how about I give you a ride to the next open store where you can call a cab?" I offered.

"Okay, thank you, thank you," he mumbled. "He said that we could descend..."

I didn't know what he was talking about but I didn't want the guy to freeze out there. "Go around and get in," I instructed.

He climbed down and shuffled around the front of the truck. When he passed the first light, I was struck by the fact that he seemed to have long sideburns, a la Elvis. When he continued on to the right, he totally vanished. I don't mean faded away; he just ceased to exist.

I jumped down out of the truck and looked all around with a flashlight, even under the truck. He was just disappeared. As I continued on toward Washington, I remembered something odd. TWA had gone out of business over two years ago. What was going on, I wondered, totally perplexed and shaken by the experience.

When I got home, I did some online research. What I found has totally turned my beliefs upside down. I've always thought that ghost stories were hokum, but with what I learned, I'm no longer sure.

It turns out that on December 1, 1974 a TWA Boeing 727, Flight 514, descended prematurely through a low cloud deck and slammed into a rocky outcropping on Mount Weather,VA. The aircraft disintegrated with all 92 people on board killed. The flight had originated in Columbus, Ohio and was supposed to land at Washington National Airport. It was diverted to Washington's other airport, Dulles International, because high winds had closed National. According to cockpit voice and flight data recordings, the crew mistakenly believed that air traffic controllers had cleared them to descend to 1800 feet from their previous altitude fix of 7000 feet. This error, combined with strong downdrafts, caused the aircraft to hit the mountain at 1670 feet above sea level. At the last second they broke out of the overcast only to see the rocky and snow covered mountain looming in their windscreen. The captain's last words to his co-pilot were, "Get some power on!" just moments before the recording abruptly ceased.

The place of impact was less than a mile south of where I encountered whoever, or whatever, it was that I saw almost exactly thirty years later. I don't want to definitely say it was an ghost but the fact remains that there was someone who appeared to be an airline pilot with a very dated hairstyle wearing a uniform of a defunct business.

I no longer am a trucker, but this has troubled me for years. If anyone would have any insight into this, I'd appreciate your help. Thank you.

There is a haunted apartment in Oakton I once owned. I had a cabinet dresser
In the laundry room with those handles that can be swung up and down
It happened a couple of nights when the handles to the drawers would
Go off by themselves. I would be so scared that I would take my baseball
Bat across the hall to check it out. Once I turn on the lights nothing
Would be there. Another occasion was my car keys and my books.
My keys were set on top of my books which were lying on top of
My kitchen counter. I had set them there for just a moment to grab something
From another room before leaving and found my keys to be moved, specifically on top of the refrigerator. One time walking out of the shower I noticed a pair of small feet that seemed to belong to a child that ran into the bathroom wall. All I saw were grey feet. After that I literally slept at a friends home for about 3 weeks. I have sold the property since and have not had I incident. I can say that the apartment I owned in Oakton was haunted. I have not been back there in 7 years.

Paul the drywall guy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There is a haunted apartment in Oakton I once
> owned. I had a cabinet dresser
> In the laundry room with those handles that can be
> swung up and down
> It happened a couple of nights when the handles to
> the drawers would
> Go off by themselves. I would be so scared that I
> would take my baseball
> Bat across the hall to check it out. Once I turn
> on the lights nothing
> Would be there. Another occasion was my car keys
> and my books.
> My keys were set on top of my books which were
> lying on top of
> My kitchen counter. I had set them there for just
> a moment to grab something
> From another room before leaving and found my keys
> to be moved, specifically on top of the
> refrigerator. One time walking out of the shower
> I noticed a pair of small feet that seemed to
> belong to a child that ran into the bathroom wall.
> All I saw were grey feet. After that I literally
> slept at a friends home for about 3 weeks. I have
> sold the property since and have not had I
> incident. I can say that the apartment I owned in
> Oakton was haunted. I have not been back there
> in 7 years.

I can tell you what happened to me. I was literally asking for this
Experience every night I used to go out at night to DC. Every time I went out I was always the designated driver so I was the sober one. Every night after going out and dropping off friends and family I would go to Arlington Cemetary. The only time I would not go is when it rained. I used to park near the Korean memorial and walk past the raising of the flag statue until I got to the brick wall. I hop over the wall and I was in the Cemetary. On a handful of occasions I would go all the way up to Robert E Lee's home. I used to dream about this place as a kid and always had a peaceful feeling about the place so I would walk over to the outdoor auditorium next to the house because there are two. The other is larger and newer with the tomb of the unknown, but I stay around the original. Well I would sit or lay around there until the sun would come up and discreetly leave, but what ended up happening these handful of time was voices. I heard two or more people having conversations around there, but it sounded like a friendly one and I never felt threatened.

Mbmpc Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Paul the drywall guy Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > There is a haunted apartment in Oakton I once
> > owned. I had a cabinet dresser
> > In the laundry room with those handles that can
> be
> > swung up and down
> > It happened a couple of nights when the handles
> to
> > the drawers would
> > Go off by themselves. I would be so scared that
> I
> > would take my baseball
> > Bat across the hall to check it out. Once I
> turn
> > on the lights nothing
> > Would be there. Another occasion was my car
> keys
> > and my books.
> > My keys were set on top of my books which were
> > lying on top of
> > My kitchen counter. I had set them there for
> just
> > a moment to grab something
> > From another room before leaving and found my
> keys
> > to be moved, specifically on top of the
> > refrigerator. One time walking out of the
> shower
> > I noticed a pair of small feet that seemed to
> > belong to a child that ran into the bathroom
> wall.
> > All I saw were grey feet. After that I
> literally
> > slept at a friends home for about 3 weeks. I
> have
> > sold the property since and have not had I
> > incident. I can say that the apartment I owned
> in
> > Oakton was haunted. I have not been back
> there
> > in 7 years.
>
> Cool story! What part of Oakton Paul?

Oh yes, I know that area well. I went to Oakton HS back in the 80's. I had a few friends that experienced some hauntings in the area, but nothing quite as scary as your experiences. There's actually another on it here...

long haul trucker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've been having trouble sleeping & when I do I
> toss and turn. For years I was a long haul
> trucker. In December of 2004, I had a delivery in
> Winchester, Virginia and a second stop in
> Washington, D.C. At my first stop I was delayed
> and didn't get unloaded until after 2:00 AM. I
> left Winchester heading east on Highway 7. Around
> 2:30 I came to the intersection of Highway & and
> Route 601 near Bluemont. At a gas station, I
> pulled in to check my map of Washington in
> anticipation of my delivery. The station was
> closed at that hour. There was virtually no
> traffic going by and it was a cold, moonless
> night. While I was sitting there, someone knocked
> on my door, startling me. I jumped and turned off
> my interior light so I could see outside and
> rolled down my window.
>
> A man was standing there in an airline flight crew
> uniform. He had four stripes on his shoulder
> epaulets indicating a Captain. He was without a
> jacket on a very cold morning. He climbed up on
> the step of my cab. He smelled like he had bathed
> in kerosene. When he got close to my face, I could
> see that his cap had the TWA insignia on it.
>
> "Could you give me a lift?" he asked in a voice
> that seemed raspy. I assumed it was from the cold.
> I was really taken off guard. It was odd. I was in
> a dark, rural area on a freezing night being asked
> by an airline pilot wearing short sleeves for a
> ride. I asked him where he was headed.
>
> "I work for TWA. I gotta get to Dulles to work a
> flight, please give me a ride, I'll pay you," he
> responded.
>
> "Well, how about I give you a ride to the next
> open store where you can call a cab?" I offered.
>
> "Okay, thank you, thank you," he mumbled. "He said
> that we could descend..."
>
> I didn't know what he was talking about but I
> didn't want the guy to freeze out there. "Go
> around and get in," I instructed.
>
> He climbed down and shuffled around the front of
> the truck. When he passed the first light, I was
> struck by the fact that he seemed to have long
> sideburns, a la Elvis. When he continued on to the
> right, he totally vanished. I don't mean faded
> away; he just ceased to exist.
>
> I jumped down out of the truck and looked all
> around with a flashlight, even under the truck. He
> was just disappeared. As I continued on toward
> Washington, I remembered something odd. TWA had
> gone out of business over two years ago. What was
> going on, I wondered, totally perplexed and shaken
> by the experience.
>
> When I got home, I did some online research. What
> I found has totally turned my beliefs upside down.
> I've always thought that ghost stories were hokum,
> but with what I learned, I'm no longer sure.
>
> It turns out that on December 1, 1974 a TWA Boeing
> 727, Flight 514, descended prematurely through a
> low cloud deck and slammed into a rocky
> outcropping on Mount Weather,VA. The aircraft
> disintegrated with all 92 people on board killed.
> The flight had originated in Columbus, Ohio and
> was supposed to land at Washington National
> Airport. It was diverted to Washington's other
> airport, Dulles International, because high winds
> had closed National. According to cockpit voice
> and flight data recordings, the crew mistakenly
> believed that air traffic controllers had cleared
> them to descend to 1800 feet from their previous
> altitude fix of 7000 feet. This error, combined
> with strong downdrafts, caused the aircraft to hit
> the mountain at 1670 feet above sea level. At the
> last second they broke out of the overcast only to
> see the rocky and snow covered mountain looming in
> their windscreen. The captain's last words to his
> co-pilot were, "Get some power on!" just moments
> before the recording abruptly ceased.
>
> The place of impact was less than a mile south of
> where I encountered whoever, or whatever, it was
> that I saw almost exactly thirty years later. I
> don't want to definitely say it was an ghost but
> the fact remains that there was someone who
> appeared to be an airline pilot with a very dated
> hairstyle wearing a uniform of a defunct
> business.
>
> I no longer am a trucker, but this has troubled me
> for years. If anyone would have any insight into
> this, I'd appreciate your help. Thank you.

TWA Flight 514, registration N54328, was a Boeing 727-231 en route from Indianapolis, Indiana, and Columbus, Ohio, to Washington Dulles International that crashed into Mount Weather, Virginia, on December 1, 1974. All 85 passengers and 7 crew members were killed.[1]

The flight was originally destined for Washington National Airport. However, the plane diverted to Dulles when high crosswinds, east at 28 knots and gusting to 49, prevented safe operations on the main north-south runway at Washington National. The flight was being vectored for a non-precision instrument approach to runway 12 at Dulles. Air traffic controllers cleared the flight down to 7,000 feet (2,100 m) before clearing them for the approach while not on a published segment.

The jetliner began a descent to 1,800 feet (550 m) shown on the first checkpoint for the published approach. The data recorder indicated there was some confusion in the cockpit over whether they were still under a radar controlled approach segment which would allow them to descend safely. After reaching 1,800 feet (550 m) there were some 100-to-200-foot (30 to 60 m) altitude deviations which the flight crew discussed as encountering heavy downdrafts and reduced visibility in snow. The plane impacted the west slope of Mount Weather at 1,670 feet (509 m) above sea level at approximately 230 knots (430 km/h; 260 mph). The wreckage was contained within an area about 900 feet long and 200 feet wide. The evidence of first impact was trees whose tops were cut off about 70 feet above the ground. The elevation at the base of the trees was 1,605 feet. The wreckage path was oriented along a line 118 degrees magnetic. Calculations indicated that the left wing went down about 6 degrees as the aircraft passed through the trees and the aircraft was descending at an angle of about 1 degree. After about 500 feet of travel through the trees, the aircraft struck a rock outcropping at an elevation of about 1,675 feet. Numerous heavy components of the aircraft were thrown forward of the outcropping. Numerous intense post-impact fires were located, and extinguished. The mountain's summit is at 1,754 feet (535 m).[2]

The accident investigation board was split in its decision as to whether the flight crew or Air Traffic Control were responsible. The majority absolved the controllers as the plane was not on a published approach segment. The dissenting opinion was that the flight had been radar vectored. Terminology between pilots and controllers differed without either group being aware of the discrepancy. It was common practice at the time for controllers to release a flight to its own navigation with "Cleared for the approach," and flight crews commonly believed that was also authorization to descend to the altitude at which the final segment of the approach began. No clear indication had been given by controllers to Flight 514 that they were no longer on a radar vector segment and therefore responsible for their own navigation. Procedures were clarified after this accident. Controllers now state, "Maintain (specified altitude) until established on a portion of the approach," and pilots now understand that previously assigned altitudes prevail until an altitude change is authorized on the published approach segment the aircraft is currently flying. Ground proximity detection equipment was also mandated for the airlines.

During the NTSB investigation, it was discovered that a United Airlines flight had very narrowly escaped the same fate during the same approach and at the same location only six weeks prior.

The flight is also of note in that the accident drew undesired attention to the Mount Weather facility, which was the linchpin of plans implemented by the United States to ensure continuity of government in the event of a nuclear war. The crash did not damage the facility, since most of its features were underground. Only the facility's underground main phone line was severed, with service to the complex being restored by C&P Telephone within 2½ hours after the crash.

The crash, its aftermath, and its repercussions are the subject of the 1977 book Sound of Impact: The Legacy of TWA Flight 514 by Adam Shaw. TWA Flight 514 is also mentioned in the closing of the second chapter of Mark Oliver Everett's book Things the Grandchildren Should Know.

This was one of two Boeing 727s to crash in the United States that day; the other was Northwest Airlines Flight 6231.

U.S. Congressman Andy Jacobs was almost on the flight, but elected not to pay the $20 seat upgrade charge and decided to take another flight back to Washington. One of his staffers was killed on the flight.

Approx Dec 1975; looking west from road and then east from the road...
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Not in Fairfax but in Castlewood VA. I thought it might be of interest to those in the discussion. I have a 5th great grandfather was given a land grant from the king of England back in the mid 1700s. He built a 2-story log house, and the foundation is still there, but another house was built on the same location. The log cabin served as a fort when the Cherokee Indians would attack. The settlers would meet at the house to fight off the Indians. I got my PhD in Parapsychology and in 1999 I went to this house, my fifth cousin lives on the property. The grave yard belongs to the Historical Society and all my relatives are buried there. All my brothers and sisters are clairvoyant, and I have spent the night there on many occasions.

I see my 5th great grandfather on the second floor walking around. His bed is still there and my sister slept in the bed at the time she stayed there. She awoke one night to see him standing at the foot of the bed. Naturally we are not afraid of him or the spirits that we encounter. You hear voices and doors open and close and someone walking up and down on the stairs. I have found Indian artifacts on the property like Indian arrow heads, and most of them had blood markings on them. The whole farm is haunted. Let me add that no one is allowed on the property and the police will be there in seconds.

ghosts of dryden Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm from Dryden in southern virginia and we have
> alot of ghosts creeping about here. ghosts from
> the revolution and civil wars are commonly seen in
> areas around our area.

nuJth Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ghosts of dryden Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I'm from Dryden in southern virginia and we
> have
> > alot of ghosts creeping about here. ghosts from
> > the revolution and civil wars are commonly seen
> in
> > areas around our area.
>
> Well don't keep us in suspense, share the stories!

In Dryden there is a real headless horseman, it's not just a story around here. They say that he is a man that was in the army, that he lived in 1775 and lost his life during a fight with some Indians. And on a cool clear night you can see him riding his horse holding his sword, and if you are walking he will chase you, and if you can make it out of Dryden you are safe.

In Dryden there is a woman that walks the roads dressed in red. When you pick her up she just looks out the window, and says take me home. When you say where she says down next to R&R. When you go down that way you have to go past a graveyard, when you're by it she says thank you and then she's gone. This has happened for a lot of years here in Dryden. I heard that she was just recently seen again.

Armed with a pot of chili, some cameras and a notebook, we set out in a 36-foot power boat amid sunshine and fair seas Thursday afternoon in search of any spirits that might be hiding within the Ghost Fleet.

Formally known as the James River Reserve Fleet, this collection of creaky ships is the epitome of spookiness, an ideal set for a Hollywood horror show: empty hulks anchored alone and far from shore, abandoned corridors, greasy engine rooms in pitch-black, rust stains like dripping blood, frayed ropes that resemble Spanish moss swaying in the breeze.

With Halloween approaching, it seemed the perfect place to camp out and experience at night.

So we did, four of us: myself, a photographer, our captain, and a curious friend looking for adventure. The government caretaker of the Ghost Fleet, the U.S. Maritime Administration, agreed to let us spend the night on the river, but required we stay at least 500 feet away from the ships, for safety reasons. Beneath the fleet, there are underwater power cables and anchor lines that criss-cross the bottom of the James like a spider web - dangers to be avoided.

We parked in a sheltered corner of the fleet, near a lonely cargo ship named the Cape Ann, which stood silently by herself. The other ships are lashed together in groups of two, three or five, head to tail, like sardines in a can.

Some of the windows on the Cape Ann's bridge were broken out and we joked about the prospects of seeing a pale creepy face peek out around midnight.

We had arrived at the fleet, off Fort Eustis in Newport News, just before sunset. The sky was a spectacular pink when we noticed something weird - our first weird thing of the trip. The sunset was beaming light at just the right angle to color two of the Cape Ann's windows red, like two angry eyes peering at us.

It was like those red eyes in the demon-possessed house in "The Amityville Horror."

Our photographer went nuts, capturing frame after frame. Within minutes, though, the pink light changed angle and the windows went black and lifeless. The eyes had closed.

The James River Reserve Fleet has been a source of fascination, history and lore for decades. Its roots trace to 1919, just after World War I, when the Navy and Merchant Marine began mothballing their surplus ships within the river, not sure where else to put them.

At its peak, following World War II, the fleet held more than 700 ships, stretching in a line almost to Norfolk.

In the years since, disposing of those vessels deemed useless and obsolete became an exercise in imagination: the Korean War took a few, and others were spot-welded into giant paperweights for atomic bomb testing in the Pacific. The Navy practiced underwater demolition on some, and laws were passed allowing states to take hulls and turn them into offshore reefs.

Many others were converted to scrap. And in 1964, more than 120 Liberty ships became silos, their holds filled with surplus wheat that the government had bought to support grain prices.

Vietnam took more ships, and by the 1970s, the fleet had been whittled to about 300. About this time, media began calling the reserve fleet the "Ghost Fleet" and the name stuck - as it did on other federal stockpiles in New York, California and elsewhere.

The Maritime Administration has never been fond of the nickname. A manager complained to a reporter in a 1980 newspaper story, "Please don't refer to it as the Ghost Fleet, all right?"

For this story, the Maritime Administration declined to comment on the notion of "ghost ships" and said workers who maintain the fleet did not want to talk about their experiences aboard the ships.

One agency official, Willie Barnes, did relate a recent ghost tale. He said a James River ship, after being towed to a scrap yard for dismantling, had one of its interior doors abruptly close and lock - much to the surprise of a laborer walking down a nearby corridor.

Today, the fleet consists of just 23 ships, its smallest size ever. More than 80 junk ships have been removed and recycled since 2001, the push coming after Congress imposed a deadline of 2006 for getting rid of the vessels most likely to leak or spill oil.

Environmental groups had wanted to accelerate the disposal program, worried that used oil and fuel, asbestos, lead, mercury and toxic PCBs in paint and wiring might damage the James in an accident or major hurricane.

During a tour, former Gov. Mark Warner, now a U.S. senator, called the ships "ticking time bombs" and pressured for their hastened removal.

We kept a close eye on the Cape Ann and other ships as nightfall spread. We hoped to see something bizarre.

Sitting there in the quiet, the great ships now in silhouette, we could not help but think of things unexplained - UFOs, chilling experiences, the occult, brushes with ghosts. So we kind of made ourselves scared, or at least on edge.

On the water, there are lights all around and we kept trying to identify them - the James River Bridge, downtown Norfolk, a channel marker. We never could figure out one: a round and unblinking light, on the far side of the Ghost Fleet and definitely not on land.

About then, we decided to go swimming. And soon the talk turned to scary creatures in the water - sharks, eels, sturgeon - that might drag us under.

Our plan was to stay awake until at least midnight, the witching hour. Three of our team did not make it; I did. Just after midnight, a boat slowly cruised past the far end of the fleet and began flashing a spotlight on the sides of ships, scanning for something or someone.

Then, it was gone.

There have been many books written about ghosts in Virginia and many investigations of alleged local hauntings. The Ghost Fleet, though, has escaped such scrutiny.

L.B. Taylor Jr. has written several volumes of his popular "The Ghosts of Virginia" series, but he never has managed to dig up anything on the fleet.

"It's always sounded like a great place for ghosts to go," Taylor said by phone from his Williamsburg home. "I've tried to look into it, but have never had much luck."

About the closest thing, he said, were stories of ghosts knocking on the roofs of James River oystermen near Fort Eustis, whispering locations where they should next go fishing.

A local ghost hunter, Mike Joao, who runs the company Virginia Paranormal, has been intrigued by the fleet but has never scouted for ghosts there.

He has captured photos of veiled images aboard the Battleship North Carolina, anchored in Wilmington, N.C. Joao said the images appear to be of a Navy sailor crawling from a bunk in one of the old sleeping quarters.

He hopes to do a similar investigation on the Battleship Wisconsin in Norfolk.

Our calm, peaceful night was interrupted by a cold front slamming into us after 2 a.m. The dark and stormy night had arrived. White caps hammered our slumber.

Our captain, a former Coast Guard officer, decided to motor home rather than risk a problem in the waves. Except he could barely see, the windshield wiper broken and water splashing across his view.

The voyage back was treacherous but ultimately successful. We slept hard after tying up at our marina in Norfolk, almost two hours after leaving the storm-tossed fleet.

Hello, I am a former Sailor with the US Navy and very interested in ghost stories involving naval vessels. My ship was decommissioned back in 2007. The Navy gave her crew an option to transfer to another ship, or to go ahead and get out of the military. Fed up with the treatment, I opted for the latter.

The USS Saipan, LHA-2, had been in service since Vietnam. It was 40 years old, and held together with rust and paint. Anytime we deployed, something broke, and we would have to limp to port, and we, the ships engineers, would fix it while the rest of the crew could take a leisurely leave wherever we pulled in to make repairs.

I worked with nearly a dozen other men and women in what was called the Main Space, where the ships engines and Main Reduction Gears were kept. It was a large, open space, with two floors. The floors were covered in industrial metal sheets, secured in place with rivets. The plates had three kinds of rivets, broke, bent, and missing. The plates rattled like crazy, with every step you made. The stairs (ladders, we called em) were secured in place with a pot metal pin at the top and the bottom. Everything in that place sounded like you were throwing pots down stairs when you walked.

At the head of the Main Space was our Center Console. It was an isolated room, with air condition, where the brass could sit and drink soda while the rest of us worked in 100+ degree temperatures, and tell us how we didn't work hard enough, or didn't make them look good enough for their bosses. While in port, when the brass wanted to go grab a beer with their buddies, when the fires of the boiler were out and the space was relatively cool... We sat in the console for Watch Duty.

From the console you could sit in the CHENG (Chief Engineer's) chair. A chair reserved for the well... Chief Engineer. It was for the big cheese to sit in, not some enlisted nobody! But hey, he's on shore! You could also see the entire upper level of the Main Space from that chair, making it ideal for watch standing. Nobody got in or out of the space without your knowledge. It was your job as watch stander to make sure that nobody messed with your space.

The strange thing was, I would talk to other watchstanders over the years, and they would mention things that didn't quite add up on watch. One fella told me that he heard someone running in the space. Like all-out booking it back and forth on the deck plates. He said at first it sounded like one guy, then several. He was convinced someone was messing with him, but this didn't make sense to neither him nor myself, as the space had a six foot bilge on the lower level... It would be a considerable drop if someone were to just hop the railing (also rickety, and held together with copper wire in many places) and you would hear them hit the bilge. All the entrances and exits to the place were dogged, mechanical hinges that operated with a lever, so it wasn't a quick exit. If anyone entered or left, the pressure in the whole place would have changed. We were on the very bottom of the ship. I'm not sure the mechanics of it, but anyone opening a door to that place made a huge vacuum, you could FEEL them open. Thing is, I had similar stories from other no-nonsense types that they felt a presence, or saw people walk by the front windows of the console (there was a super narrow catwalk by one window where the walkway was elevated, where you can see someones feet if they walked by, but there was really nowhere to go from that catwalk... It was for fixing insulation on steam pipes that ran over the console).

Also common, folks told of a Chief that would wake you if you fell asleep on watch in the CHENGS chair (which, surprisingly enough, was comfy, so falling asleep at 3am with the droning buzz of the console was easy to do!). Thing is, its the job of ALL khakis (Chiefs and Officers) to wake you if youre asleep on watch, but this one, no one had ever seen before. People would think we had a new chief, or after he left question just who he was, and why he was in our space.

Our Shaft Alley (yeah, I said it) was generally creepy as hell, you never quite felt alone down there, and people reported seeing spectral shadows moving about down there as well. The shaft alley was a six story ladder (a real ladder, not a stairs-ladder) down into a space that was maybe the size of a double wide trailer with the ships shaft (attached to the propeller) running through it. The path to the shaft alley was a rickety catwalk right smack in the middle of the ships hangar bay. It was shoddily constructed even when it was in its prime, and once you navigated this gauntlet of tetanus, you had the reward of your six story climb. However, whether due to design flaw or someone with a sick sense of humor, the light switch that controlled all of Shaft Alley... Was at the TOP of the six foot ladder. So just anybody could come and flick that switch and your happy butt was in the dark, and good luck climbing up that ladder. Thing is, no matter how ninja footed you were, you were making sound if you were trying to goof with someone. People reported having someone turn the lights off on them, and they start climbing the ladder, and demanding they cut the light back on. The light comes back on... They finish their climb, and there's no one around.

I never felt comfortable in certain parts of the ship. I told folks that there were places on the ship that I just WOULD NOT GO. Something just weirded me out in these locations. Without telling others what these places were, people would ask me...

"The lower V?" (Sort of like our ships basement, but this is where Morale Welfare and Recreation put our fun stuff... So the place was well-lit, open, and designed to be a warm and inviting environment...)

"Behind the fuel oil pump?" (Oddly, this was in the mainspace, and it was literally just on the other side of a machine only mildly larger than your oven... It, too, was well-lit...)

There were other places on the ship where I just didn't feel welcome, or I felt like I had an extra presence watching me play Playstation over my shoulder.

The O-2 deck took them all, though...

During your time as a Sailor, youre expected to mess crank. What that means is, that since the Galley workers cook your food and feed you, you're supposed to help lighten their load by helping them out for a few months. Staying overnight to chop onions, making sure things are clean, things like that. Granted they never came down and thanked us for making the ship move through the water by fixing the engine, but that's neither here nor there.

I lucked out. I got to spend my crank time taking out officer's trash, and keeping their hallways clean. It was long and thankless work due to the tyrant watching over the process.

The Navy is saturated in tradition. The O-2 level stood for Officers, level 2... It was the second floor for officers, and where they slept and did whatever else officers did. Enlisted personnel were not supposed to be up there for any reason. Often I had to explain why I was on THEIR level to passers by.

One night, as I was finishing my cleaning (I still had things to do before I was "done") I was struck with an overwhelming compulsion to run. To just haul it as fast as I could out of there. I saw nothing that caused me to want to run, I didn't hear anything. It was just an urge... The same urge I think that rabbits feel when they know a fox is near, but cannot see it. That was the most scared I had ever been in my life, and do you remember what I said earlier about all the doors having dogs? Could you imagine having to run from something that you are SURE was right on your tail but could not see, and having to undog and redog every door in your way? The strange thing was, I ceased to feel that urge, like a weight being removed, the SECOND I crossed the limit to the O-2 level and crossed into enlisted territory. I did not experience that again during the rest of my time cranking.

I too am a former sailor... Enlisted in 1987 Retired 2007. I know of the spaces you speak of. My second ship was a Knox Class Frigate the USS Trippe FF 1075... It was Old... Ragged and falling apart. It too had spaces that made you look over your shoulder. I would not be surprised if there were both residual haunts as well as intelligent haunts aboard the former USS Saipan. The residuals could be the walking on the deck plates... The intelligent... The unknown Chief who would wake folks... If no one was ever written up for sleeping on watch after being caught by this unknown individual that says volumes about his being non-corporal.

Some of these 'feelings' you experienced may have even been due to High EMF levels... Just imagine the levels it could reach in some of those spaces.

The Trippe had 'her' bad spots as well... While in dry dock our engineers were working down in the bilges... Scraping and Painting... Many of them reported the feeling of being watched or of hearing footsteps during this maintenance period... A friend of mine, a MM2 (Machinist Mate Second Class) was working a needle gun one night when he felt it 'punch through' the deck... He reached down and sure enough he felt a hole he had created with the needle gun... Unnerved by the fact the ships hull was that thin... Coupled with the felling of being watched MM2 'FREAKED OUT' when a hand grabbed his... MM2 bolted out of the space and it took a week before he would go back into the space.

A yard worker, working on scaffolding rigged around the outside of the ship so the hull could be scraped and painted had reached up and grabbed his hand when he put it through the hull he had caused.

I believe each and every US Ship could very well be Haunted...

Happy Spirit... When it comes to Decommissioned Ships it depends... Some go on to become Historic Sites and or Museums... Most go to the scrapyard... But a piece of each one gets 'broken off' (Ok cut off) and sent to what are called the Plank Owners... These are the members of the 1st Crew of the ship, the crew that Commissioned it. Some sit in a scrapyard others are recycled... And the BB's those big old Battle Ships with their 16 inch guns... Well they keep getting 'mothballed' and the retrofitted and used again...

Swordsaint...Thank you for sharing this and thank you for your service.

USS Trippe (FF-1075) was a Knox class frigate of the US Navy, built at Westwego, Louisiana, was commissioned in mid-September 1970. In July 1971, following shakedown training in the Caribbean area and a surveillance mission off Haiti, she entered the Boston Naval Shipyard for overhaul and installation of the Basic Point Defense Missile System, which featured short-range "Sea Sparrow" guided missiles in an eight-round launcher on her afterdeck. Trippe was the Navy's first destroyer-type ship to receive this later-widespread contribution to shipboard protection against air and missile attack. The first months of 1972 were spent testing her new weapons and participating in exercises. In June the ship passed through the Panama Canal en route to Southeast Asian waters, where she provided Vietnam War aircraft carrier escort and naval gunfire support services during July and August. Trippe then went to the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf areas, visiting many ports in a region that would see increasing U.S. Navy activity in the coming decades. She returned to the U.S. East Coast in December 1972, after a deployment that had taken her completely around the World.

During an overhaul in 1973, Trippe was refitted to allow her to operate the larger helicopters of the Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System (LAMPS). From August of that year into January 1974 she made her first tour with the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. A second cruise to the Indian Ocean and Middle East followed in January–May 1975. Reclassified in mid-year as a frigate, with the new designation FF-1075, she spent the last three months of 1975 and the first five of 1976 in shipyard hands. Trippe returned to the Middle East Force in March–July 1977 and went back to the Mediterranean for her second Sixth Fleet deployment in April–October 1978. The next year she cruised around South American as part of exercise "Unitas XX" and operated off West Africa.

The busy frigate made four more Mediterranean deployments during the following decade, in 1982, 1983, 1985 and 1987. Some of her 1983 tour also involved visiting ports in West Africa, the southern Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean. In the mid-'80s she was also modernized, receiving a seakeeping-enhancing bulwark on her bow and the Close-In Weapons System. The latter's fast shooting radar-controlled 20 mm gun mount was installed on her afterdeck to improve her defenses against cruise missiles. She spent most of the late 1980s and the early 1990s operating in the Caribbean Sea area, with counter-narcotics service taking much of her effort. At the end of July 1992, Trippe was decommissioned and leased to Greece. The Hellenic Navy placed her in commission in April 1993 as Thraki, and she was formally sold to that nation in 2001. A major lube oil fire occurred while at Naval Dock Crete in 2003 melting the superstructure and destroying the interior of the ship.

In April 1989, the USS Trippe collided with fleet oiler Platte off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida. A crewmember, Michael MacHado, who served during the collision, indicated of his tour on the Trippe that he “could not forget colliding with the USS Platte and limping into Charleston with a 18 degree list to starboard.”

USS Trippe was named in honor of Lieutenant John Trippe (1785-1810), a hero of the Tripolitan War.
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Anyone who's ever lived in the Washington DC area knows you should stay away from New York Avenue at night. Not because of ghosts but it goes through some pretty rough neighborhoods. Going on New York Ave was a shortcut for me at the time and I decided to risk it at 3 am (doors locked just in case), I figured all the street weirdoes would have gone to sleep by then, there were still quite a few of them around though.

At a stoplight a homeless looking man walked up in front of my car and just stood there, I got scared to say the least. When the light turned green he didn't move. I honked and he didn't react in any way. I was the only car on the street so I backed up so I could go around him, that's when I saw he didn't have legs. He was just floating in the air. I've never been so scared in my life. I drove away as fast as I could and I have never taken that shortcut again after sunset.

Okay since I moved in to my new apartment in December this weird thing has been happening. At 2:30 am the phone rings I pick up and I just get the dial tone. Right after I pick up I hear a sound from the front door. I go out and my briefcase is knocked over. This happens about once a week on different days. My girlfriend who sleeps right next to me in the bed doesn't hear the phone ring only I do which makes me think it's not really ringing just in my head. But the knocked over briefcase is weird. I tried not picking up the phone and then my briefcase does not get knocked over. I've had my girlfriend lock the bedroom door and hide the key before bed and have her go with me and check the briefcase after the phone call, and yes the briefcase is knocked over.

A Haunting in Haymarket Wrote:
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> I lived in Fairfax County for much of my life, and
> recently moved out to Haymarket about 2 years ago.
> We rent a house out in Piedmont and I think its
> haunted. Some of our roomates say they have seen
> or heard spirits moving around downstairs during
> the day when no else in home. The owner has a
> satellite clock that automatically corrects it’s
> time when syncing up to the satellite in orbit.
> This one is very odd, because once and a while, it
> will be waaaaay off by about 8 to 10 hours. It’s
> pretty creepy to see the arms of the clock moving
> quickly to correct itself. I myself have dreams
> about a witch in our closet, coming out and saying
> scary or odd things to me. All in all though not
> much has happened since we’ve been there, that
> is until last night.
>
> We have a young son that is 18 months old, last
> night he was playing with the roomates downstairs
> in the large family room we have. The napkin
> holder in the kitchen jumped off the kitchen table
> and landed on the floor next to my son. (See the
> attached picture below). As you can see it’s of
> pretty solid weight and is flat, so it wouldn’t
> tip over. The only other thing is that one of the
> teenagers that lives with us, says that she feels
> like a creepy presence has started to follow her.
> She said that she was in Walmart one day and he
> felt the presence there in the store standing
> right next to her (too close). We take pictures
> all the time in the house and nothing unusual has
> showed up on them. However, there does seem to be
> some negativity in air (some of the roomates
> lately in the past 6-8 months) haven’t been
> getting along and get into yelling matches usually
> over nothing.
>
> The owner is an Asian man, and the reason I say
> that is, the house has several “Feng Shui
> deflectors” on it (see picture below). I looked
> them up and A “Feng Shui deflector” contains a
> small Bagua mirror in it’s center. The Bagua
> mirror protects and adjusts negative Chi directed
> at the house from outside forces and repel evil
> spirits and people with bad intentions towards
> you. There are at least 4 to 5 of them on the
> house that I have seen all on the outside
> (according to tradition it’s very bad to hang
> them up inside). I’ve asked him if the house is
> haunted and he didn’t come out and say yes, nor
> did he say no. He did admit that there were some
> small occurances that he couldn’t easily
> explain, but they were very few and far between.
> He raised a family in the house and later he and
> his wife moved to Maryland.

So tonight, while my son was downstairs playing with the other kids, I saw the ghost that lives in our house. My wife and I were in our bedroom watching her chick flick shows. I was a little bored and was just staring out our door which faces the bathroom door which was open. I saw what appeared to be a short old woman (possibly Asian) with short, curly black hair. I think she was rushing out of the bathroom to watch the kids downstairs playing and didn't realize my wife and I were still in our bedroom. From the upstairs the area is open so you can look down and see the foyer on one side and the large family room from the other side. The ghost seemed surprised to see me looking at her, and moved away from our door at a high rate of speed. My wife and I weren't scared at all, and in fact it seemed cute and hilarious.

About an hour after it happened, I saw an orange light (similar to those crappy flashlights from the 70's that were very weak powered) come on in the bathroom (reflected off the mirror facing the tube) and then go off right afterwards. There was no one in the bathroom.

In the past few months, the feeling of negativity has gone down some, but is still here. When I saw the ghost, I didn't get a negative or scary feeling. It was more like watching an old Asian lady running late to Bingo. LOL. Any insights from anybody on this?

ghosts of dryden Wrote:
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> In Dryden there is a woman that walks the roads
> dressed in red. When you pick her up she just
> looks out the window, and says take me home. When
> you say where she says down next to R&R. When you
> go down that way you have to go past a graveyard,
> when you're by it she says thank you and then
> she's gone. This has happened for a lot of years
> here in Dryden. I heard that she was just recently
> seen again.

This is true. The lady in red has been spotted again. It's the same woman that will stop you and ask for a ride. When you ask her where she is going she says down by R and R. When you go down that way you have to go by a graveyard, and when you get by the graveyard she says ''stop here.'' She gets out of the car, and she vanishes.

Last spring, I went on a trip to Washington DC with my husband to look at all the landmarks. In front of the capitol building there was a man wearing a 1700 style costume with the white curly wig and everything. I was going to go up to him and ask him if he wouldn't mind having his picture taken with me. I started walking towards him and he just vanished into nothing. My husband was there also and he didn't see anything.

meghan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Last spring, I went on a trip to Washington DC
> with my husband to look at all the landmarks. In
> front of the capitol building there was a man
> wearing a 1700 style costume with the white curly
> wig and everything. I was going to go up to him
> and ask him if he wouldn't mind having his picture
> taken with me. I started walking towards him and
> he just vanished into nothing. My husband was
> there also and he didn't see anything.
>
> Has anyone else seen this man?

When I was about ten years old my mom had a meeting in D. C. Well on the last day of the meeting the members of the group could bring their kids to a picnic and then we could go on a tour of the memorials.

At the picnic there were other kids there too. They were younger than us (my brother Malcolm and i) so they were scared easily. The place that the picnic was at was the octagon. My mom told us that it was haunted and that some people can see a girl falling off the balconey.

We saw that and it scared us so bad that we ran away but we went back about 5 minutes later. When we looked in the second time we saw a face in the window of one of the doors. It looked like it had glasses and it just stared at us.

I was really scared by then. About 2 minutes later we saw somebody come out of the building. We asked him if he saw anyone in there but (this is the scaryist part) he disappeared. He was a ghost! Only us kids saw it.
I am now 17 and I still can get this out of my mind.

Strange Going Ons Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Okay since I moved in to my new apartment in
> December this weird thing has been happening. At
> 2:30 am the phone rings I pick up and I just get
> the dial tone. Right after I pick up I hear a
> sound from the front door. I go out and my
> briefcase is knocked over. This happens about once
> a week on different days. My girlfriend who sleeps
> right next to me in the bed doesn't hear the phone
> ring only I do which makes me think it's not
> really ringing just in my head. But the knocked
> over briefcase is weird. I tried not picking up
> the phone and then my briefcase does not get
> knocked over. I've had my girlfriend lock the
> bedroom door and hide the key before bed and have
> her go with me and check the briefcase after the
> phone call, and yes the briefcase is knocked
> over.
>
> This is real and it is happening often not sure
> what to do about it?.

When I read your post it literally sent a chill down my spine. Something has been happening on and off with me since I moved a few months ago. One day, I was taking a morning shower and someone called my name from the living room. I live alone and I thought I must have left the door unlocked and one of my buddies must have let themselves in, I couldn't recognize the voice though. I yelled out 'hold on a minute I'll be out in a minute'. So I finished my shower and wrapped a towel around myself and went out to the living room. There was nobody there and the door was locked. I live on the 3rd floor so you can't climb in through a window besides they were all closed as well.

I have a common name so I figured I must have heard a neighbor calling another Mike. I went to the kitchen to get some breakfast and then I saw that my fridge was wide open and all the food was neatly stacked on the floor in front of the open fridge. Something weird is definitely going on in my apartment. I'm not scared of it but I'm looking for a new place.

Déjà vu? Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Strange Going Ons Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Okay since I moved in to my new apartment in
> > December this weird thing has been happening.
> At
> > 2:30 am the phone rings I pick up and I just
> get
> > the dial tone. Right after I pick up I hear a
> > sound from the front door. I go out and my
> > briefcase is knocked over. This happens about
> once
> > a week on different days. My girlfriend who
> sleeps
> > right next to me in the bed doesn't hear the
> phone
> > ring only I do which makes me think it's not
> > really ringing just in my head. But the knocked
> > over briefcase is weird. I tried not picking up
> > the phone and then my briefcase does not get
> > knocked over. I've had my girlfriend lock the
> > bedroom door and hide the key before bed and
> have
> > her go with me and check the briefcase after
> the
> > phone call, and yes the briefcase is knocked
> > over.
> >
> > This is real and it is happening often not sure
> > what to do about it?.
>
> When I read your post it literally sent a chill
> down my spine. Something has been happening on and
> off with me since I moved a few months ago. One
> day, I was taking a morning shower and someone
> called my name from the living room. I live alone
> and I thought I must have left the door unlocked
> and one of my buddies must have let themselves in,
> I couldn't recognize the voice though. I yelled
> out 'hold on a minute I'll be out in a minute'. So
> I finished my shower and wrapped a towel around
> myself and went out to the living room. There was
> nobody there and the door was locked. I live on
> the 3rd floor so you can't climb in through a
> window besides they were all closed as well.
>
> I have a common name so I figured I must have
> heard a neighbor calling another Mike. I went to
> the kitchen to get some breakfast and then I saw
> that my fridge was wide open and all the food was
> neatly stacked on the floor in front of the open
> fridge. Something weird is definitely going on in
> my apartment. I'm not scared of it but I'm looking
> for a new place.

Seems like to me that in both cases, you could take these issues to the landlord. There might be some kind of history to these apartments, either by themselves or the entire apartment complex.

Can someone explain this to me. Why is it that if ghosts are real, we only see ones from the last couple hundred years or so? What about ghosts from 1,000/10,000/20,000 years ago? Granted, the world was less populated, but still...this seams like a bias to "newer ghosts" which makes me doubt the existance of spirits.

kev Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Can someone explain this to me. Why is it that if
> ghosts are real, we only see ones from the last
> couple hundred years or so? What about ghosts from
> 1,000/10,000/20,000 years ago? Granted, the world
> was less populated, but still...this seams like a
> bias to "newer ghosts" which makes me doubt the
> existance of spirits.

There are a number of different theories. I suspect the answer lies in the surrounding environment. Ghosts are not humans anymore, but seem to be some sort of energy that seems to "Cling" to objects, structures, etc. around them. I suspect that if you separate, remove, or destroy those objects and take away any useful sources of energy, ghosts tend to either disppear or become visible less frequently. As for ghosts of people, creatures who have been dead for very long periods of time, some sightings of prehistoric looking creatures in the world could be ghosts. For example the Thunderbirds, Pterodactyls, etc. and those might be tied to the lands they used to inhabit. For me, I don't have the luxury of dis-belief. I've lived in a haunted house and have seen a UFO up close. I get chills thinking about what other things are out there that "shouldn't" exist also.

I was in Northern Virginia in the summer of 2008 with my family. On one of the days we visited Mount Vernon the site of George Washington's house and farm. We just entered his house with a bunch of people and were listening to the tour guide.

I was standing off on my own looking into the roped off doorways of a dining room and living room. I was looking ahead and listening to the tour guide when I felt a light tap on my left shoulder. A stranger was far over to my left blankly looking at the tour guide. My family was way over to my right also unaware of anything. No one was behind me, just a wall and the roped off dining room. I think maybe a maid or slave of George Washington's could have been trying to politely get my attention or George Washington himself.

Later in the tour we saw Washington's bedroom which the tour guide said he died in due to a fever or I think it might have been pneumonia. I told my family about what happened later on, they thought I was kidding at first but realized I was being serious. When I got back home to Massachusetts I researched Mount Vernon and discovered it's common place to have paranormal experiences. Some people had even seen a full apparition of Washington riding his white horse on the farm.

We grew up in Front Royal and we lived off Rivermont Dr. The house my father Billy built was definitely haunted, there were so many things that happened. And I wasn't the only one who experienced these things, my brothers and mom and cousins also saw and heard things.

kev Wrote:
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> Can someone explain this to me. Why is it that if
> ghosts are real, we only see ones from the last
> couple hundred years or so? What about ghosts from
> 1,000/10,000/20,000 years ago? Granted, the world
> was less populated, but still...this seams like a
> bias to "newer ghosts" which makes me doubt the
> existance of spirits.

The theory I liked best was that most ghosts are "apparitions", which are emotional resonances that permeate the matter of a specific place, like a recording on magnetic tape. When a person who's sensitive to this phenomenon comes into proximity with a haunted location, they trigger a playback of the "recording" which tickles the neurons and synapses in their brains and leads to the highly subjective experience that most ghost encounters are.

This also explains why you don't experience ghosts from a thousand or two thousand or ten thousand years ago. Just like with any recording, the signal eventually degrades and ultimately fades away. (Although it'd be cool to think that you could see the ghosts of mammoths and cavemen.)

The biggest hole in this theory is that the recorded signal should be strongest shortly after the traumatic, emotional event, but I haven't heard any stories about something like Sandy Hook Elementary School being haunted.

Ghostbuster Wrote:
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> The biggest hole in this theory is that the
> recorded signal should be strongest shortly after
> the traumatic, emotional event, but I haven't
> heard any stories about something like Sandy Hook
> Elementary School being haunted.

I noticed when my mother passed away, we had activity in our house until the day she was buried. (We could hear her calling my father's name through the air vents in the house, reflections off the glass doors and windows, etc.

I have read accounts of people in England encountering ghosts from Roman times and earlier, but such accounts are very rare, I suspect because they are more like recordings that simply wear out over time.